Kay:
Hey there, gang it’s Thoughtful Thursday, May 13th, episode 354. We have a thought for you today from Ms. Marie Curie. The first woman to win a Nobel Prize is Polish and naturalized French physicists and chemists who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. One of the first women to really break into that STEM field. Mary Curie’s coming at it with some incredible wisdom today.
Shi:
Which is, “Have no fear of perfection; you’ll never reach it.” I feel this on a spiritual level right now.
Kay:
So deep.
Shi:
“Have no fear of perfection; you’ll never reach it.” Thinking about sometimes if I’m going to lean on my kind of sociological terms, these ideal types that we talk about when it comes to either an economic system or something like that. But when it comes to our personal lives, we do this too. We have this ideal type. This came to the blueprint of your life as Tony Robbins calls it. This map of what we think things should be and what they should look like. If it all came together it would look like this, but all of it coming together is contingent on quite a few things, and turns out you change your mind all the time.
Kay:
Well, here’s a little bit of a bomb drop for you guys and maybe you’ve already realized this in your life, or maybe this will be just as much of a bomb drop for you as it has been for us.
Shi:
You might need a reminder like we do.
Kay:
But guys, perfection doesn’t even exist. Just get a little weird with us for a second. What even is perfection honestly?
Shi:
Objectively perfection cannot even exist because we will all define it differently. If someone says, what does perfection look like in your life, or what does perfection look like in a mate? What does perfection look like in an economic system or an education system or a government policy, or in how to handle the police? Can you see how subjective perfection is? On that macro-level obviously impossible, but on your micro-level too, because you change your mind as we just mentioned, and it changes. You move the goalpost or you define perfection one way, and then you achieve it and realize, well, it actually more like X, Y, and Z which means that if we start to chase that we won’t ever reach it like Marie tells us, and then what are we even doing with our lives?
Kay:
So, we went on a little bit of a quest to figure out…
Shi:
Imagine that.
Kay:
Yeah, yeah.
Shi:
We went on a quest. Imagine that.
Kay:
It’s figuring out so what even is perfection? So, when we looked up the definition, it was not helpful.
Shi:
No.
Kay:
The definition of perfection is the condition, state, or quality of being free, or as free as possible from all flaws or defects. Okay. But flaws or defects, according to who?
Shi:
Right.
Kay:
Who’s the judge of the flaws? You? Are you the ultimate judge of all the flaws and the defects? So then what definition of perfection? How did you even get that definition? It’s so subjective.
Shi:
So, you are the one that’s been granted, the God-gifted knowledge of…
Kay:
Status.
Shi:
…what perfection is.
Kay:
Without flaw.
Shi:
Our sarcasm is dripping here, and you can feel it and you know where we’re coming from with this because we’ve caught ourselves doing this lots of times, where you’re trying to define something in a different way. You’re or saying perfection is kind of that it should be, that ideal type, that precisely how I would like it to be. Then that almost kind of slaps in the face, the unfolding of creation happening all around you with seven billion other people not to mention the billions of galaxies. You’re saying, no, no perfection is getting that dream job with these hours on that street with this office. When I drive that car, I get enough sleep, and I feel good about my body. Come on. That’s perfection in the seven billion galaxies and all of the things out there. So, glad that you guys could take that little philosophical trip with us as we explored what perfection meant.
Kay:
Well, there’s so much around it and your culture, your upbringing, all of the circumstances that you’ve been around, the things you’ve gone through, the trauma you’ve experienced will influence the way you view perfection. So, please take solace in Marie Curie’s quote when she says, “Have no fear of perfection; you’ll never reach it.”
Shi:
Alright. That brings you to your #ThoughtfulThursday quest, Perfectly Imperfect Quest that is. Today we want you to attempt to push perfectionism out of your mind, even if only for the day. If you knew perfect was impossible, (which it is), how might you live, act, and work differently? Reflect on this question as you observe how you feel at the end of the day. Are you ready?
Kay:
Say it with us.
Kay & Shi:
Let’s quest!
