Perfection Vs. Contentment

Perfection means striving to be better at your each step. To be perfect is to be flawless. But can human nature really be beyond any flaws? Unless you are the Almighty God himself, of course (But it is still debatable). But being the humans that we are, we are programed to point out flaws in everything which doesn’t settle with our way of thinking, or our own way of doing things. 

But if we think about it, it is this urge to get better, to improve, that we are here in this technology driven world. This spark for growth which kindles within, is the key element that has made innumerable inventions and discoveries possible. Without this thirst for betterment, we would still be where we were billions of years ago. 

Contentment is being happy with the things way are; being satisfied with what life has to offer. It is a state of mind difficult to achieve but not impossible. The more you expect from life, more are the chances of getting disappointed. So when things happen in the least expected way and at the least expected time, we get double the amount of happiness. 

Now the question before us is, if we should strive for perfection in our life or settle for mediocre things? Well, the answer is simple. It is our individual choice. The world needs both sort of people to function properly. We can’t all be perfectionists nor can we all be contented with whatever we have. World would be a boring place, either way. 

When we want our life to be perfect, we establish an order in our life, we draw a framework outside which we do not allow ourselves to budge, we get bound by our own rules, which we religiously follow and slowly and maybe unknowingly, we tend to impose these on the people around us. Any disorder, flaw or deviation from the “natural behavior” easily get us frustrated to the core. But in this struggle to achieve perfection in our every stride, we miss out on those finer details in our life which could give us happiness, had we stopped by and acknowledged them. We fail to value small achievements, tiny meaningful gifts, minor efforts we take or the simple praises we receive because our vision is always high up which gets tunneled over time. 

Mediocre is always looked down upon. If you have got skills but no will to get somewhere, you won’t achieve anything in life. This is the general way of thinking and in a way, quite true also. But what if the skillful person is happy where he is? What is he doesn’t want to go looking for success for, he is contented with what he does? Is there something fatally wrong with the way he is thinking? Can we blame him for his lack of aim in life? Isn’t the most sensible thing to do in this scenario, is letting him be? After all, we are all looking for happiness and peace in our lives and we have our own ways to search for them. Some people easily find it, most people never do and the remaining few discover it in the long run, perhaps accidentally. 

Trying to perfect even the little things in life and enjoying the little things that brings happiness are two different roads for us to choose from. If you try to perfect everything, you can never find contentment in life until you perfect your entire life, which sounds like a typical fairy tale. If you are contented with everything in life, you will never strive for perfection. Perfection helps the world grow, contentment makes it peaceful. The world needs a balance between the two.