I don’t have to tell you that to expect perfection from others is a quick dead end road to disappointment. And although we would all hastily deny that perfection is an expectation that we carry, I have a feeling that we’d all be found guilty of communicating otherwise—including me, especially me.
We communicate and teach people that they are held to a standard of perfection each and every time we withhold forgiveness, when we deny others the opportunity to be heard and understood, when we repeatedly revisit and rehearse another’s mistakes, and whenever we deem someone unworthy or undeserving of a second chance. When we insist that the people we love live according to a script that we have written up for them, we not only hold them to a standard of performance, we suffocate their identity while cheating ourselves out of intimacy in its truest form.
If you’ve been following this blog at all, you already know how fiercely fixed I am on the “present over perfect” movement. What I’m learning is that that formula is strikingly applicable to relationships of any kind. My hope is that you begin to place a greater emphasis on relationships with people who make a deliberate decision to show up for you again and again despite their missteps. I hope that you resist the gravitation toward people who look like they have it all together because it feels easy and safe. Your life is too short and too full of possibilities to settle for easy and safe.
We place too much value in the pursuit of the people who we determine can do the least amount of damage to our hearts. We need to stop searching for people who travel along life’s path so carefully that they rarely make a mistake and instead, pursue and value the people who are willing to come alongside us no matter what we’re up against. Keep a place in your heart open for the people who may seem like they have a knack for making a mess of things, but continue to show up again and again with the intent to get it right the next time.
I very much believe that these kinds of intentional relationships are worth waiting for, holding on to and investing in. I hope it goes without saying that I’m not speaking to relationships or friendships that are abusive, toxic or one-sided. I’m not saying that you should stick out and fight for every relationship that good for your heart. I’m saying that we need to give people the safe place to be the train wrecks that they are. When we get in the habit of accepting people as they are and seeing them for who they could be, we offer them a rare gift to be real and wholly themselves.
Appreciate and value the bravery that it takes to be vulnerable and transparent and real and messy. Until you make room for this kind of realness in your life and in your heart, your relationships will be ungrounded and fragile.
And don’t try so hard to be perfect, yourself. You can’t be both present and perfect at the same time. They both demand the same amount of attention and energy, but only one is real. The other is just a performance. Being present for the people you love is the most valuable gift you have to offer. It’s saying “I make mistakes and I don’t always say the right things and I may hurt your feelings and let you down, but I am here. I am here to enter in. Your pain, your joy, your shortcomings—I want in.” Sometimes the best way to love people is to just show up.