On a Winter walk through a Danish forest, the beautiful sight on the photo above suddenly materialized in front of me. A moss overgrown broken tree limp in a little pond. It was stunning in all its imperfection, a composition no human had planned or constructed, with so many details open for imagination and awe. Nature’s originality left me surprised and breathless in a way that a perfectly manicured yard could not do.

This made me think about the beauty of imperfection, the realness of it – because nothing is ever perfect. Like humans. I don’t think anyone would describe themselves as perfect. Most of us would probably feel misunderstood, not fully seen, if anyone called us perfect. If someone called us perfect we would feel that they didn’t see our flaws, downs and failures? Would they really know us, or just see what they wanted to see?

Does anyone even want to be called perfect? I doubt it because if people see you as perfect they don’t see the real you. They only choose to see the perfect side. But we all have flaws and dark sides and we all want to be loved for who we really are with all our imperfections which make us unique and human, not robots or mannequins.

Perfectionism steals energy from what is meaningful and important to our happiness. Since the perfect is impossible, chasing it will leave us exhausted and unfulfilled. Of course, we should strive to do our best and to be good enough but perfect is an illusion, inhuman and unnatural. We are all beautiful in our own unique ways, no one is more, no one is less. When everyone is allowed to – and letting themselves – be their true self, that’s when their beauty will shine, even if its not always pretty.

I am so excited to see that my fellow “hygge blogger”, Jo Kneale, who runs the blog howtohyggethebritishway.com is thinking along the same lines as me at the same time. Coincidentally, today, she posted a review of the book “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brene Brown https://howtohyggethebritishway.com/2020/01/10/book-friday-the-gifts-of-imperfection-by-brene-brown/. Thank you for sharing this book with us, it sounds like a must-read 😉 And maybe it is no coincidence that we are both posting critiques of perfectionism after the busy Christmas holiday?