Ponder Post: Gifts of Imperfection

Sometimes you find a pithy little book that just seems to hit the nail on the head. The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown is short, only 130 pages. It is told in an anecdotal style that is refreshing and circumvents the dangers of resembling a droning psychological tome or a trite self-help treatise. The subtitle Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are raised my curiosity as to how it might relate to life changes such as entering into the retirement phase of life.

Have you ever seen a trailer for a movie and then, when you go to see the full length feature itself, you realize that all the good parts of the movie have already been shown in the trailer. Little more remained to be gained from the film itself. That is not the case with this book. The table of contents tells it all and does so quite concisely. But reading the book itself was worth it because the anecdotal examples were highly entertaining, quite illuminating, decidedly thought-provoking, and particularly instrumental in helping me integrate the book's message into my own life. Here are ten guideposts to living "wholeheartedly" – accepting myself and making decisions that satisfy me –  as opposed to deciding and acting according to what is perceived by others to be correct. Several of the following guideposts resonated with me.

Cultivating Authenticity: Letting go of what people think
Frank always teases me about an expression I have, perhaps due to my Polish heritage. They will think gypsies live here. Shades in the house are at uneven heights... ?  They will think gypsies live here. Christmas lights up too late into the New Year... ? They will think gypsies live here. Did not dust before the guests arrived... ? They will think gypsies live here. So what!

Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting go of perfectionism
I do not have to correct every misspelling in a text message before pushing "Send." I am still working on that one, even if the message is just to Frank or one of my kids. Also, I love to quilt and there are several stages to the process: picking colors, cutting out, piecing together, and quilting the final product. I am pretty good at the first three but need a lot of practice in the fourth. I am afraid of ruining a top I pieced by quilting it badly. Consequently I have a backlog of quilt tops that are just that, tops. Angela Walters, a well known quilter, advises that, "A finished quilt is always better than a perfect quilt top." And it is true. I'd be much happier quilting a top imperfectly and gifting it, rather than feeling the guilt of those seeing those unfinished projects every time I look in my closet.

Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting go of the need for certainty
Here faith is defined not just in a religious sense but in trusting ourselves to make good judgment calls and not seeking reassurance from others or even reassurances from a spreadsheet or other calculation tool! I had entered into a week of vacation with friends uptight because I had not laid out a straw man schedule of events and itinerary ahead of time. Free flow is an OK thing!

Cultivating Creativity: Letting go of comparison. 
This section had a ponder worthy concept. "Comparison is the thief of happiness." Think about it. Were you happy with that test score or that pay raise at work until you learned someone had done better? Were you content with your purchase until you found out you could have bought it cheaper at another store?

Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting go of productivity as self-worth
This is a big one when entering retirement and not just because of leaving the paid workforce. How come I still have that big pile of paperwork and all that clutter in the attic? I am retired. I am home all day. I should be ashamed that I am not more productive, right? Wrong. Consider this quote. "The opposite of play is not work – the opposite of play is depression." It is OK to diddle around a bit. Let go and be creative.

In that vein, I like to diddle around in Google images. I found these that I think represent the guideposts I discuss above. Can you match them up?

I could have read this book in one sitting but I lost it somewhere in the house. As soon as I found it I completed reading it that evening. However, it had become overdue at the library while I was searching for it and I will now have to pay a fine. Right now the fine is at $2.75. Apparently it had been misplaced for about a week and a half beyond its due date. My positive take away from this is that I am not upset and am learning to cultivate self-compassion by letting go of perfection. My sewing table, where it had been buried under some piles of fabric, is now tidier. I will return the book tomorrow and just pay the fine without hanging my head in embarrassment. I even allowed myself to refrain from returning the book until I'd blogged about it. No reason to flagellate myself at the price of $0.25 per day and I am sure I am not the only person to return books late.

I do have a small regret that I'd had to pause for so long in reading The Gifts of Imperfection due to my misplacing it. I did not get a continuous read, which is always better. In leafing through it to refresh my memory and write this post however, I was able to remind myself of some of ideas that had initially struck me. Long term memory sticks better than short term memory. I can accept that I was imperfect in a broken read through. Imperfection can have its advantages, too!

I like to mix some non-fiction in with fiction when I take time for my recreational reading. I think this book was a concise, and actually fun, way to do just that.