"This place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you." --Hafiz

One of my friends is at the tippy-top, the ultimate pinnacle, of the dance world. She is among the very best of the very best. There’s no more climb-to-the-top left for her; she’s there. And yet she often thinks, “Wouldn’t it be nice to get better and be as good as (other dancer?)”

As if she isn’t right there on the pinhead with that other person. Already.

And as if, with some magically perfect perfecting, her dance and life and self will be somehow, inexplicably, better.

Which makes sense I suppose, when we consider how pervasive and absolutely everywhere the idea of self improvement is.

I mean let’s face it, whether it’s a top-level dancer or the rest of us average Joes, these selves need tidying. In skills and achievements, in personalities and feelings, these self things are messy and unpredictable. They say wrong stuff, do wrong stuff. Ugh, and those feelings!

Make it stop.

So we get to bettering.  We wake up every morning aspiring to be the best we can be. We work on eliminating baggage, striving to be more kind, more calm, more giving, more successful, more enlightened. We aim to get to where external influences no longer trigger reactivity.

I mean, why not? Seems harmless enough, right? Maybe even helpful. Where's the problem?

We'll just set aside the, “But what is this self we are trying to improve,” woo. For the moment anyway.

It’s just that, what living person in all of time has ever actually achieved this 100% totally-improved goal? After all, if it was the least bit possible, shouldn’t someone - at least one of the many billions of humans- have attained the perfect baggage-less upgrade by now?

Not that we would know. We have no idea what Nothing-left-to-fix-completely-improved-already-best-they-can-be even looks like. I mean, it doesn't even look like my already-best dancer-friend.

Because even when better does happen, we're then focused on getting more of it- more achievement, more polishing, more perfection.

Which makes for depression. And anxiety. And failure.

Which we then also need to reform.

Hello, unwinnable loop. Hello, unending project.

Besides, when we aspire to be the best person we can be, what does that say about the person we are currently? Is it good enough?

If so, why is improvement necessary?

And yet, the mind sees no alternative.

Because self improvement comes partly out of the confused idea that we have the power to see ourselves clearly in the first place.

As if we can get outside ourselves, and can look back at us.

Like there’s an external and internal, with a dividing line between them. And somehow we’re on both sides.

And then weirdly, we also think we know which of those sides is the real us.

But do we?

Because usually, in everyday life and in every self-help approach ever written, it's a given that we, whatever that is, are inside.

And yet when needed, somehow we leak outside in order to see ourselves.

Which makes no sense. Nothing can see itself. One can only see whatever one is looking at, from outside it.

So are we the vast outside looking back or are we the teeny lump of meat that is being seen?

There’s only one of us.

And then we might notice whether that enormous external-looker-back, whatever it is- actually thinks the small internal-whatever needs improving, or fixing, or changing.

Assuming it even understands that concept.

And we might also notice whether this uncontained external whatever- ITSELF needs improving.

Hear that laughter?

That just might be Perfection-Us, enjoying that little imposter-us thinks it needs to be "better."

As if a hologram can ever know what is good or bad about itself, and can then set about changing itself.

So maybe we’ve had it wrong all this time.

Maybe existence has room for this particular me-thing- in all its variety of color, feeling, and quirky flawed personality. As it is.

Maybe there’s no need to tidy up or reject any aspect -small or large- of this human experience.  

Because it just could be that that inclusive, accepting, all-encompassing “external” perfection is what we actually are.

As opposed to the deluded Pinocchio puppet that dreams of being a real boy.

Which sure leaves us with a whole lot less work. And a whole lot of acceptance. And a whole lot of enough-ness.  

And happens to be the best,

The most incomprehensibly, vastly, hugely, perfectly

Best

It can be.

Already.


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"Be kind to your sleeping heart.
Take it out into the vast fields of light...
And let it breathe."  --Hafiz