Songwriter Leonard Cohen wrote, Forget your perfect offering. There’s a crack in
everything, that’s how the light gets in. There is no perfection anywhere in life. Each of
us is given a different hand to play. No one has the “perfect” hand. Our job is to do the
best we can with what we’ve been given to work with. There is no “perfect offering.”
Many people suffer greatly from the disease of perfectionism. Perfectionists hate the
hand they have been dealt and spend every waking moment trying to make their hand
perfect. They obsess about everything that’s wrong. They anxiously wait for that
magical day when it will all come together and then they will be able to relax and enjoy
life. Their obsession with perfection is exhausting emotionally and mentally. They have
no peace. At the root of it all, perfectionists hate their limitations, those of others, and
life’s. They hate all those damn “cracks” and spend their time trying to seal them up even
as new ones appear.
There is only one solution. We must embrace imperfection, or what I prefer to call
“finitude.” Embracing finitude means embracing limitations. It means facing the truth
that much of life is about failure, disappointment, missed opportunities, undeveloped
potential, broken promises, broken dreams, unmet longings, uncertainty and confusion.
There is no perfection anywhere. There is no perfect friend, parent, sibling, spouse.
There is no perfect rabbi, community, or synagogue. We must stop searching for the
teacher, the guru, the master who promises “I will make all your dreams come true.”
Those who have freed themselves from the prison of perfectionism are those who
embrace their humanness, limitations and imperfection. They are at peace with their
brokenness and feel no shame or remorse. This is not a state of resignation. I am not
describing people who have given-up and are resigned to mediocrity. Far from it,
because of their total acceptance of their limitations they feel emboldened to become
their very best self. They play the hand they have been dealt without bitterness,
resentment or pressure and are content with their portion. They rejoice in the struggle and
the slow process of change. Progress not perfection is their mantra. They celebrate being
just human. Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful. Moses never made it into
the Promised Land. His ultimate dream was never realized. Can we expect more?