The Reassurance of Imperfection

Creating art for others is already scary enough, add in perfectionism and you may as well dig a grave and lay in it with all your art supplies.

There’s just no way to make “perfect” art and  have long term success. However, if we embrace our art’s imperfections and allow them to become not only tolerable, but our favorite parts of the process, then we win. Our long term success is embracing not only the imperfections in our art, but also the imperfections in ourselves. Creating art for others is scary, but is it scary because we want them to think our art is perfect? Or is it scary because we want them to think that we(the artist) are perfect? 

Personally I have never struggled with traditional perfectionism, I have however struggled with people pleasing. While these are different struggles, they share common themes of wanting acceptance and belonging.

I think we’ve all been victims of appearances before. We find ourselves getting caught up in the aesthetics of life instead of raw reality, in hopes of gaining the approval of others. But all along the only thing that everyone can agree on is that . . . NO ONE IS PERFECT.

I heard someone say that if Jesus, the most perfect recorded historical figure, was still hated by people enough to be hung on a cross, then why do we(vastly imperfect people) try so hard to gain approval?

Being a good person is something everyone should try to be, but trying to be loved by EVERYONE is an endeavor that will ultimately cause us to lose our individuality, and dislike ourselves. At the end of the day, our imperfections are what make us relatable to others, and that is the reassurance we all need sometimes, the reassurance of imperfection.