Right family, right place, and the right time.
I thought those were the secret of a successful life.
Born to a middle-class family, I grew up resenting the people who had everything just because of those reasons.
The smart, good-looking, and intelligent people, made me feel extremely insecure about my imperfect life.
That was until I started talking to these “perfect people”.
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The most good-looking guy I knew in high school used to get immediate attention wherever he went. Teachers loved him, students loved him, he was a great listener and he seemed to brighten up everywhere with his positivity.
Somehow this guy and I shared the same bus home. So we ended up meeting every day and became good friends. It turned out that although he portrayed himself as an extremely optimistic person, he was depressed, suicidal, and was on years of therapy. In addition, his family was in tatters, and he was living a shabby life with his mom who herself was fighting cancer.
That day itself was an eye-opener for me. While I started being empathetic towards him, I saw this whole notion of perfection slowly starting to dissipate in front of me.
“I need to talk to these perfect-looking people, maybe everyone has a backstory.” I thought.
And no wonder, they certainly did. Every person I regarded as perfect was always crippled by imperfections.
The more I talked to them I realized that every so-called perfect person had some imperfections that made them unhappy. Ironically, most of the time they were worried about lacking something that I already had.
The pretty girl who won college pageant shows was legally blind in one eye due to childhood physical abuse.
The smart friend who got a Ph.D. scholarship to an elite university has a severe skin disease that makes him embarrassed to go out for weeks when it’s flaring up.
The rich girl who had any materialist thing easily given unto her was suffering from severe isolation anxiety due to absent parents.
The piano prodigy who won several competitions had a severe stammer that had him rejected from several teaching positions despite the fact he was extremely qualified.
The backstories exposed every perfect person’s raw imperfections.
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However, last week I met this guy who was an heir of a business tycoon. He hasn’t stepped into any other shop than a premium boutique or wore anything that is not a luxury brand. To add to that, he was also dashingly handsome and had so many girls swooning over him.
So, I thought, maybe this is someone who has got his life together.
But alas, it wasn’t. The more we talked, he opened up about how his family is ill-treating him, how his sister has turned into a drug addict, how he has severe memory laps due to an illness, and how insecure he was about his high-pitched voice.
So while I was sitting there thinking he had everything I didn’t have, he was wishing to have a normal family, a regular voice, and a decent memory like anybody else.
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Everyone is imperfect in their own personal way. Sometimes, it is visible outside, and sometimes it is not. If you feel someone is perfect, that is only because you don’t know their backstories yet.
And once you get to know them, your current life would start to look better than their seemingly perfect life.
Interestingly, with maturity and time, you will start to appreciate that imperfections are just another unique feature of people that is making the world beautiful.
And then, you won’t resent perfect people.
Because perfect people, don’t exist.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: bruce mars on Unsplash