Thank you for the world so sweet!
Thank you for the food we eat!
Thank you for the birds that sing!
Thank you God for everything!
Anonymous (A prayer that we were taught at school)
I TAKE PRIDE AT BEING PERFECT
Growing up in a household where perfection in every task is exhibited by my parents, I seek perfection in everything. Nothing short of perfection in any work is acceptable to me.
At school, my teachers love entrusting me with complicated responsibilities, as they are sure that I would deliver perfectly.
At college, I am indifferent to taking up any responsibility as the sheer number of students in my class scare me and deter me from taking up any work. Reason is that I cannot deliver perfectly. Anything short of perfection is not acceptable to me.
I marry into a household where I am expected to be fulfil the role of a perfect daughter in law. Only this time, I am at a loss to comprehend what perfection means. No matter, what my efforts are in completing my daily tasks and duties as a daughter in law, I fall terribly short. I am beginning to lose my confidence, my new family just cannot integrate me as an inherent part of their family, because, I do not behave perfectly. I falter at every step, with no guidance, no encouragement and keep losing my touch with perfection. I am no longer perfect. Hence, I am a failure.
I grow ashamed to face my parents and admit that I am a failure. I grow more and more introverted. I no longer look forward to go back to my parents’ house, nor meet my friends from my pre-marriage days. I have made no new friends after marriage. I hate to be seen as a failure by new acquaintances as I am no longer perfect. I grow more and more lonely. I do not need people around me. I have become self-sufficient for myself. At this point of time, the only other human being who thinks I was perfect, is my two year old daughter. I fulfil all her needs. To her, her mother is perfect.
The need for being perfect can be overwhelming for perfectionists, like me.
When my daughter is two and a half years, I seek to pitch in for earning some extra income to ensure a good life for my daughter and myself. I learn new skills and land with a job. I never have a job I like; nevertheless, my job (which, over the few decades of working, I have managed to make my career) brought in the extra money to fulfil the needs of my daughter, to whom I wanted to provide the best that was possible by a woman from a middle class household in a teeming metropolis like Bombay (now Mumbai). I was now, quite perfect. Hence, of some value to people around me.
My colleagues (a few dozens of them in 12 companies that I worked in the span of 25 years!) will always remember me for the perfection with which I delivered my work. Rarely a comma amiss, rarely a missed timeline. A few small goof ups, nothing unmanageable and they served as my learning experience and for which I never stop beating myself or running my abilities down in front of my colleagues. I hate being IMPERFECT at these times and never let myself forget these instances.
I TAKE A LOT OF PRIDE IN BEING THE PERFECTIONIST MOST OF THE TIMES and beat myself mercilessly on occasions when I have not.
Interestingly, my colleagues always praise my eye for small details and the perfection with which I execute my work. The expertise with which I bail them out of emergent situations at work, the willingness with which I always lend them a helping hand have all my colleagues praising me to my bosses. Most of my bosses rest easy after entrusting me with tasks with tight deadlines. They know that once the task is assigned to me, I would leave no stone unturned to deliver it perfectly and on time. Always an eager learner, I go beyond the call of my duty, role and amassed knowledge that I can apply in that particular industry.
Respect at my workplace rises steadily.
I, finally rest easy as, being redeemed, or rather compensated from being a failure at home, with my perfection of work at my workplace.
Strangely, none of this really fulfils me, even at work. I have everything going my way at work, but I am unfulfilled. In fact, I feel miserable. I complain and fret at not getting promoted at work, nor getting a deserved salary increase, nor resources to develop a team that I ask for. The more I think about it, the more I hate my workplace.
Somehow, to me, all the respect that I have earned seemed to slip away and I end up as a cynical, resentful and a complaining employee. The result of all this is that I am always over burdened with work, I work late hours to deliver, for over a period of many years, and have burnt myself out much faster than any of my colleagues or people of my age.
I cANnot accept and embrace my imperfections.
My professional life is slipping rapidly. My life has become miserable. I hate to wake up in the morning and I hate to go to work. I hate to take on new assignments willingly, although I do not refuse those dumped on me. I am filled with negativity at my workplace.
What an unenviable life! Negativity in personal life and negativity in professional life too.
My increased tendency to generalise everything over a single insignificant incident, label people, polarising myself, blaming myself and many such habits come in way to my happiness. Efforts to keep myself motivated and positive are in vain.
Then I read an article which impacts me tremendously. One particular line haunts me and I begin my journey of Self Transformation.
“True happiness is the consequence to feelings of gratitude for all the little and big things in our life! “
I knew that this was the key to turning the quality of my life and my attitude around!
I began to journalise my blessings and my disappointments each day. I simultaneously also revisited years of my past and journalised my blessings and my disappointments, at each stage.
I read my list again and again. Every time that I read it, I re-wrote one or two of my disappointment as a blessing! What appeared as a disappointment at one point of time in life was actually a blessing to me at a later point. I expressed my gratefulness to the situation and people involved in those instances. I begin to mend broken fences and burnt bridges. It is not an easy task. It is filled with failure in my efforts. I keep at it, never letting go of the attitude to Gratitude that was key to fulfilment and satisfaction in my life.
It is, at this point when I realised how I have hardly ever been grateful for the great many blessings in my life.
We, human beings, tend to get caught up in solving the various problems / issues of our day to day lives. We forget to express gratefulness to the thousand blessings that are happening to us all around us.
Good and bad things are happening to us all the time. Why then, are we always busy solving the problems, or worse re-living our past problems and wasting our time and energy? How many times do we, pause, re-wind and express gratitude for the good things happening in our life, wholeheartedly, and without any disclaimer? How often do we appreciate the efforts of people around us to make our lives successful? How often do we acknowledge their presence and appreciate them?
When I say appreciate and acknowledge, I do not mean the superfluous, lip service that we very often indulge in, but appreciation and acknowledgment and gratitude from every cell in our body, every fibre of our being.
How often we think, we are entitled to so many blessings of our lives, without even sparing a thought to what our life would have been without those blessings. Do we really let the feeling of gratitude envelop us and sweep us off all negativity?
I have taken the education my parents provided as my entitlement as their offspring. So many times, even complained that I was not allowed to pursue the stream, nor the career that I have wanted. When I PAUSE, RE-WIND, APPRECIATE, ACKNOWLEDGE AND THANK them for whatever education they have provided to me, from the very fibre of my being, I realise the magnitude of their sacrifice, the generosity of their beings. What my life would have been without that basic education they provided to me, is not something that anyone would ever want for themselves! How difficult it would have been to face the vagaries of life for me without that empowerment tool called basic education.
It is a good habit for me to do the exercise of PAUSE, RE-WIND, APPRECIATE, ACKNOWLEDGE AND THANK everyone and every incident at the end of every day. It enables me to complete with myself, others and various circumstances around me every day, forgive myself, others around me every day. This stack of gratitude, over a period of time in my thoughts fills me with positive energy, fills me with supreme happiness and contentment. This building of positive energy in my thoughts, day by day, weeds out all negativity from my thoughts, past and present.
Consciously choosing to fill myself with gratitude, consistently practicing to do so, patiently picking myself up when I fall, developing a kind and compassionate attitude towards myself and others is well worth the journey of my life and worth all that I achieve during that journey!
I end this blog with a whole lot of gratitude to the people who will read this, appreciate this, acknowledge this, assist me build on content and context of life and be a part of my journey.
Thank you!