OctPoWriMo Day 5 "Finally, I Understand"

Today's prompt got me to thinking about all the things I understand now that I didn't when I was younger (that was after all the purpose of the prompt.)

The thing that leapt to the forefront of my mind became the following poem; which is meant to be a reminder that none of us can achieve perfection though we spend a heck of a lot of time beating ourselves up for that.

It has taken me forty-six years to get here, but I finally understand that no one is perfect, so to expect perfection in myself is just to set myself up for failure and misery. I still forget this now and then, but every day as I get older I am trying to learn to have more compassion for not only myself, but my fellow human beings as well; because expecting perfection of anyone is an unfair thing to do.

I hope you find reading this poem as freeing as I found writing it.

Happy Day 5...

~bru

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The Perfection Trap by February Grace

Many were the nights spent in self-loathing

all those years lost to the bitter fight,

in struggling to become the perfect person

but falling short again, wrong over right.

Now I know there is no true perfection

it’s a cold lie sold by charlatans and thieves,

those who’d rob us of our soul’s humanity

and keep us pinned forever on our knees.

Now I see I can only give my utmost

my honest best in all the things I do,

but the demands of this fiction called perfection

I won’t satisfy; and neither, dears, will you.

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