Consumption of media increasingly takes place on one of two devices: a 46″ (or larger) LCD TV or a 7″ (or smaller) handheld screen. Similarly, political conversation in this country has walked to the very end of two identically extreme planks.
The middle is shrinking.
But there exists some wonderful space between gorgeous and hideous, obese and rail-thin, love and hate, perfection and failure.
I’m here to say that it’s OK to be okay.
I am no longer going to chase the impossible. Perfection isn’t a reality and the pursuit of it is futile at best and dangerous at worst. This is not to say not to try your best. It’s to say that for most of us our best doesn’t/won’t/can’t equal perfection. And that’s okay. That’s great. That should make us happy, not miserable. But for most of us, it doesn’t.
We’re a nation of depressed people chasing after the hips of a movie star and the fortunes of an internet mogul. Just. Fucking. Stop.
My new found love of soccer has taught me something over the past year. Not taught me so much as made me remember what I think I always knew and appreciated about the world. About life. It’s that there is perfection in moments; tiny, fleeting, but perfect still. This is true even if the whole of an experience is anything but perfect. For example, a glorious crossing pass can be considered perfect, whether the head it connects with sends the ball off the crossbar or soaring past the goalkeeper. A run towards goal by a striker can be perfect even if the pass from the centerback never arrives. I see this now. I love this. It has helped me find peace with the things that I cannot control and appreciate the tiny perfections that surround me every single day.
And that has made me a much happier person.
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