Practically Perfect in Every way...except with that, and that and that.....

I realized something the other day. Well it began last Friday I was with my sister Melissa and my parents, we had gone out to eat. My parents were talking about Melissa and I being perfectionists. I never really saw myself as one- I knew Melissa was one- I've always felt rather that I was a procrastinator, though Melissa is one too. ;) But they said that we are such perfectionists that we get afraid of messing up, so we think, "If I can't do it perfectly I won't do it at all.", to avoid failing. Of course this isn't the healthiest way of thinking, but it hit me that is how I feel! The whole phrase, "Just do your best, always has meant to me that if you know you should or shouldn't do something, than you have no excuse for not doing it, or doing it. I hope that made sense. So when I mess up I feel horrible, because I know that I should have done it differently. I know I know it, even before I do it, yet I do it anyway. So I spend my time beating myself up, thinking I didn't do my best. Well my parents said that instead of looking at it as "Do your best", which I've subconsciously interpreted as being perfect, I should instead look at it as getting back up when I make a mistake, to not give up on myself or the situation. So I was thinking about all of this the other day and I realized that even when we know better that is not that same as knowing how to do what we know. For instance, You may have a recipe, you can read the instructions, and know that you've got to cook the food, but trying to follow the recipe accurately and to get the meal "perfect", is something that takes skill- which you can only obtain through practice; requirements for practice are: time, patience, effort, and being willing to make mistakes. Some recipes will be easier for us than others; so we shouldn't expect all of them to be easy, or all of them to be difficult. Life is this way, and we've just got to try and accept that mistakes will come- the "doing our best", isn't perfection, it's perseverance, it's patience, it's not giving up, no matter how many times it takes us to get it right. Even professionals mess up what they are good at- so not being experts at life, no matter how long we may have lived, means we're going to fall, and we should look forward to the getting back up, because we can.