Happily Imperfect

Never settle. Always push for more. Strive to be better.

Why is it that the older I get the more these clichéd phrases seem to resonate? When did my life become the subject of motivational posters?

Demotivator poster

Perhaps I’m realising that life is actually quite simple, and that no matter how I try to bend things into weird and wonderful shapes, how many layers of my own issues I pile on top of each day, life will keep on keeping on.

Maybe it’s because I’m more accepting these days, I more relaxed about some of the things that used to get me down or stress me out. Maybe it’s because I have a better understanding of what failure means, that failing is not a bad thing but not trying or not caring enough to try is where the demons lie.

Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much
Or berate yourself either
Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s

Baz Luhrmann – Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)

I changed the name of this blog a while ago and the current name seems to fit me more and more. It is an acceptance, a statement of contentment, but it doesn’t mean that I’ve settled for how I am.

A few weekends ago (I’ve been ill and only getting back to this draft now) I realised that there is still a lot I can be better at, I think I summed it up well enough in my reply to a tweet from @pennyred.

My tweet to @pennyred

I know I have a lot still to learn about many things but increasingly there is a tumbling mess of words at the forefront of my mind that I know are all linked in some way but that I haven’t quite sorted out in my head yet; Privilege, Misogyny, Discrimination, Feminism, Labels, Sexuality, Appropriation, Mis-gendering… the list goes on.

There are many more words, emotions, morals, and sensibilities in this space that all seem to smush together into one big amorphous blob. They are all accompanied by a varying (and thankfully increasing) level of knowledge, a desire to be accommodating and understanding when needed, to be more active and vocal when required, and to large shut up and pay attention to the many people who are smarter than me.

Even then if I do manage to pull all those ideas and thoughts together within my mind, I’m not even sure I should be putting my ill-informed, if well-meaning, ramblings out into the noise. Who needs another man spouting his opinions anyway, we’ve got plenty of those already.

So for now I will continue my journey of learning more, leaning back and looking for opportunities to help. I will not be passive, I will be engaged, I will be respectful. I will learn.

I will get it wrong, but failing is ok, and that is why I consider myself Happily Imperfect. I am happy that I am still on the journey of improving myself, that I still want to challenge things I see and hear, and that I still want to ask ‘Why?’ more often than accept the way things are.