Don’t let perfectionism come in the way of progress towards perfection Gita 02.14

Don't let perfectionism come in the way of progress towards perfection perfectionism refers to a mental tendency which can often be neurotic wherein we feel that everything we do must be perfect and we imagine that life will always be jolly and that even if problems come we will be able to deal with them and there will be no failure in our life no reversals no setbacks however such a imagine such a conception is unrealistic we can never have all our desires fulfilled we can never have all our plans actualized we can never have all our goals achieved at one level this is fairly easy to understand even a brief experience of life as is lived in the real world will show us that we can't bend the world to our will at all times or even for that matter on most times the bhagavad-gita 8.15 states that this world is a place of misery so when we accept the reality of this world acknowledging that many things will not work out right then that enables us to focus on the things that can indeed work out right if you consider the world around us there are events that happen to us there are emotions that we experience because of those events and there are actions we do for achieving certain goals among these three every one of them can be poisoned by the mentality of wanting everything to be perfect yes spiritual wisdom given in the bhagavad-gita explains to us that things can be perfect but perfection is not in this world not at this level of reality perfection is in the spiritual world at another higher level of reality as long as we are in this world we all have to focus on tolerance the bhagavad-gita 2.14 states perfectionism is the aspiration for transcendence but without the willingness to follow the process that will ever take us to the transcendental level tolerance means that we learn to make the best choices among the less than best options that the world presents us so let's go back to the three things events emotions and achievements all of us will experience that bad things happen to us sometimes for no apparent reason we are going through a routine course of life and suddenly some controversy breaks up some disease is detected in our body some misunderstanding leads to a disruption in a important relationship some stock market upheaval causes our bank balance to crash there is denial which can disempower us if we do not recognize that actually we are meant for something better than just playing with things hoping expecting demanding that they work out perfectly the bhagavad-gita 5.20 tells us that do not be elated amidst pleasure and do not be dejected amidst distress so here pleasure and distress refers to things that happen to us that brings us to the second level emotions that some people try to cover up and deny their emotions the first is that we try to we deny that bad things are happening the second is that we try to deny that the bad things have had a effect on us emotionally unemotionality is not necessarily a virtue excessive emotionality is of course not a virtue but nor is repressing our emotionality entirely we may not express our emotions in public before everyone but we need places where we can be ourselves where we can feel and share our hurts and be comforted just like a warrior fighting on a war field may not flinch even when hit by a painful blow that unflinching posture is meant to deter the aggressor to scare the aggressor such a blow doesn't hurt this fighter what can I do then how can I win but after the fight is over when the warrior has come back to one's camp then the warrior has to acknowledge that I am wounded I need treatment so wounds that are denied are often wounds that are deepened if we can learn to process our emotions appropriately by concealing them if necessary in public and by expressing and healing them in more closed circles then we will be emotionally healthy otherwise if we become unemotional utterly if we choke the negative emotions when we experience them then as all emotions flow through the same pipeline of our consciousness our choking one set of emotions essentially requires choking that pipeline and then we can't experience emotions at all so the only people who never experience distress are the people who are either psychopathic or the people who are dead yes we don't want to be carried away by our emotions but at the same time we don't want to be needing to bury all our emotions constantly so acknowledging our emotions and then processing them appropriately is the way to emotional health and lastly with regard to what we do we all set targets and we all would love to achieve the targets that we set society to glamorizes people who with iron like determination progress from setting a goal to achieving it but even achievers are not always achievers we hear of their stupendous successes but they also have had failures in fact failing is normal and necessary for succeeding we all fail our way towards success a child falls several times before the child learns to walk so the unwillingness to accept failure is the unwillingness to do what it takes to succeed rather than expecting that every single thing that we set out to do we will do it we need to temper our expectations so that though we endeavor wholeheartedly we don't let that endeavor interfere with our encounter with reality we win some we lose some but in the net analysis if we do our best we will be winners and this vision is much more easier to actualize when we can see our life as related with Krishna as meant for his pleasure and we see success ultimately in his terms when our intent is to please Krishna that intention itself is perfection because that intention will take us to life supreme perfection in his eternal abode beyond this world where perfection is an impossibility and perfectionism is the self-destructive hope that keeps us locked in this world whereby the aspiration for perfection in this world keeps us from the achievement of perfection in Krishna's world.