Dear Tori,
I've been thinking for a long time, for a lot of years actually, how I would explain this next insight into life to you. I'm not sure I have the best way yet, but it's time try.
It's about the pressure of being perfect and how it's a force of resistance to you, myself and everyone else being happy. This pressure has a greater effect on us than most people realize. Trying to be perfect is like trying to jump high enough to touch the moon, and then feeling a failure and less of a person because you can't do it.
The truth is, no one can jump high enough to touch the moon Tori. It's impossible and being perfect is just as impossible and even if you try to think about it, I'm willing to bet you can't think of one single person that IS perfect by any and every standard.
Being perfect is a myth and the very existance of the concept of perfection is nothing but a curse because it's a dream that can never be achieved.
The double whammy with perfection is it's also how we sometimes try to not only judge ourselves, but others as well.
There may be something different then what we see as normal in someone elses actions or appearance and we sometimes have the tendency to criticize them on what we think perfection would be in how they act or look.
The trap in this is something most people never see coming.. because when we criticize others for not being perfect, we are also setting the bar for how we, OURSELVES, have to now act as well. Deep inside, we remember when we criticize others..
Imagine saying something like, "That boy acts so weird.. he's a total loser" or "Look at what that girl is wearing.. she has no sense of style at all", in the back of our minds we remember what we say and then put more pressure on ourselves to not act weird or take chances with what we wear because we have already said there's something wrong with it.
So, we start putting fences around our own actions that create pressure to act more perfect and we could even start feeling more self-conscious about how we act and dress because of it. All because we were holding someone else to an impossible standard of perfection. Be careful to not criticize or be critical of others because you are also hurting yourself.
The advice I'd like to give you Tori is to try to appreciate the beauty and bravery of being uniquely yourself and also try to see the same in others that choose to be themselves. The imperfections in all of us are what makes us more interesting. The girl that dresses different then others is brave to do so because she didn't care what others thought. The boy that acted weird and didn't care what others thought just may not be tied down to the pressure of worrying about how others judge and think about him.. I would see that as bravery and maybe the making of a boy that will become his own man that makes his own path in life and becomes a leader.. not a follower.
If these people bowed down to the pressure to act and be what someone else thought they should be, they wouldn't be uniquely themselves.. and I think that would be a shame. I hope to one day get to know you Tori and truly my greatest desire is that you feel free to be as unique, interesting, weird, silly, passionate and empowered to be yourself as your heart can dream to be.. now that would be cool.
