Perfectly Imperfect

I went to lunch with my father last week and he said something that really stuck with me. He said, “if you can’t trust your doctor, who can you trust” and I was thinking, well, yeah, you sure in the heck can’t trust your doctor. Doctors are humans; doctors are fallible.

I believe that people who are naive enough to trust that their doctors are infallible are likely to be severely disappointed in life. If you truly believe that your doctor, judges, police, teacher, parents, friends are one hundred percent accurate one hundred percent of the time, that people in positions of authority are infallible, as this younger generation likes to say, you are going to end up ‘butt-hurt’, a lot.

People are people no matter who they are or what their jobs are. I’m sorry for those people out there who think they are perfectionists because they are only lying to themselves. People are not perfect, ever. At any point, at any time, when you think you are being totally perfect, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you’re not.

I thought this was only an issue for the younger generations. You know the ones I’m talking about, those adorable teens who like to think they are completely knowledgable of everything… I love those guys. They’re so sweet, they’re so cool. I mean, really, it would be laughable if it wasn’t so darn irritating.

I had three boys, and for each of them at one time or another, they thought they knew everything about everything. They are older now and thank goodness their brains grew in. But at least they did and although they are still young men, they are more intelligent than many of the adults running around. That’s a pretty big assumption on my part you may be thinking right now. But it’s true because they learned that they do not know everything, they learned that they are perfectly imperfect and that perfection is literally something of fairy tales.

No matter who you are, no matter what your career is or what you do for a living, people are people, we are all human. We get sick, we get lost, we have feelings and emotions, we have accidents and make mistakes and people die. And as humans, we cannot stop any of that.

Although my religious beliefs may be different than most, I do like the idea that someone did create us in their likeness. You know why that makes me so happy? Because if we are not perfect, then in all likelihood, we were created by someone who also was not perfect and that makes me feel pretty great. Knowing that when humans have hard times, when things couldn’t be worse and we pray or wish for something better, it’s good to know that whomever or whatever created us is probably just as confused about how to fix our predicaments as we are.

It’s good to remember that everyone is literally human, a work of art, a one of a kind hodgepodge of feelings, abilities, talents and secrets. So the next time you feel the need to point out someone’s flaws or mistakes, remember we are all human and instead take the time to count your own mistakes, wait… count your moment’s of perfection, that will take less time.