Perfect or Complete

Why is it that when I achieve a goal in life, or something I have striven for, I am often dissatisfied or have a feeling of anti-climax? Is it because I always seem to strive for perfection instead of completeness? Perfection is an impossibility, given the human condition. Completeness on the other hand is quite feasible – difficult but feasible.

What then is completeness? To be quite honest I am not sure. I know that it will be reached by my trying to be more of a human’ being’ rather than a human ‘doer’. It will mean facing my faults head on. It will mean me taking full responsibility for my actions. It will mean me trying to be more aware of the impact that the things I do and say, will have on others. It means, in other words that I have to try to be more ethical in my relationships. It means treating others the way I would like to be treated. 

We have a relationship, of some sort at least, with everyone we meet – our dentist, friends, shop attendants, our motor mechanic, family members - who ever.

This does not mean just reading a book on self improvement, though that would be a start! Any change must come from a deep desire to change for the better, and we can all get ‘better’!! I know that it is hard to accept, but it is not possible to grasp at some "self improvement" idea and apply it externally like an ointment, and expect to get ‘better’. I know some people (myself included) who will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own being (souls?). Practice yoga, go on a new diet, or mechanically intone a mystic text from some arcane publication - all because they cannot (or will not) get on with understanding themselves, and they have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own beings (souls?).

We all can do it, we can all improve. It means, as George Bernard Shaw is reported to have said, “To dream of things that never were and ask ‘Why not?’”