The World is Perfect And I’m Flawed

And that’s perfectly fine.

My son had just woken up and was sitting on the couch. I grabbed his allergy meds and brought him a little tiny cup of water — the kind that holds an ounce or two.

He took the medicine. 5 minutes later, he screamed. He had accidentally spilled the rest of the water on his pants.

“Oh, you had an accident,” I said. “Let’s get you some dry clothes.” But he refused to change into the pair of dry shorts I laid out for him. He wanted the pants.

Now, we’re in the middle of summer…so it wasn’t an issue of warmth. And the shorts I found for him happened to be the same exact material , color, and style as the pants he’d had on. But still, he refused.

Finally, after 30 minutes of him running around agitated, I understood the problem:

He wasn’t upset about his pants; he was upset that he’d had an accident. He’d done something that wasn’t perfect.

Once I pointed that out to him, he made a face and calmed down (though he still refused to wear the shorts).

I have to be perfect

This issue of perfection isn’t a new thing for my son.

Once, when he was a toddler, he walked down the hallway with a frisbee. Inside the frisbee were three toys. When the toys fell out, he didn’t pick them up and keep going; he picked them up, went back to the end of the hallway, and started back down again.

It had to be perfect.

And still today, when he has an error on his math homework, trips and falls, spills something…or if you tell him that what he did was wrong in some way, he gets upset and it’s almost impossible to calm him.

And when he makes a mistake…it’s the “mistake” that’s wrong, not him. “It thinks I did that but it’s wrong!”

It makes finding a solution difficult. Because if HE didn’t cause the problem, it’s out of his control to fix it. But he couldn’t have caused it, because he absolutely MUST be perfect!

The other day, I wanted to teach him what to do in an emergency. I gave him the opportunity to answer my question before I explained, and he got it wrong.

To avoid a meltdown, I had to explain to him that he’s not capable of knowing everything. No one is. That’s why I wanted to talk to him about it! I wanted to teach him. There was no way for him to know it until I told him.

“Don’t tell me things I don’t know,” he responded.

The next day, I saw him picking up his video game when he hadn’t yet done his daily routine. When I pointed it out to him, he started to cry.

He hadn’t been perfect. He’d made a mistake.

Expect things to go wrong

I was sitting in my office working when I heard screaming downstairs. Initially, I ignored it. But when it kept going, I headed downstairs.

My son ran upstairs at the same time to ask for help. A lego piece he needed had fallen and he couldn’t find it.

As we walked back into the kitchen where he was working on his legos, he spotted it next to one of the chairs. “There it is! Don’t go there anymore! You’re not supposed to fall!”

Once he calmed down, I told my son, “The world isn’t perfect. You should expect things to go wrong.”

“No,” he replied and looked at me funny. He didn’t believe me.

“Yes,” I added. “Things go wrong all the time. It’s how you react that determines your experience in life.”

But as I said it, I knew it was pointless. He wasn’t sold on the imperfection of life yet. And anyway, that phrase was a bit too over-the-top and “out there” for an 8-year-old.

Do you expect perfection?

I know my son’s case is unique — extreme, even — but we all expect perfection from ourselves in some ways.

We get upset when we don’t have the perfect body.

When we eat that cake we told ourselves we wouldn’t touch.

We get angry when we make mistakes. When we lose something.

We blame others for our errors and forgetfulness.

And we yell at computers and phones when they don’t do what they’re supposed to…even if it’s because we didn’t hit the right button.

So take a minute to look at yourself — and at your life.

Where do you expect perfection?

What if you were okay with being perfectly human instead?