F*cking Perfect

"Don't let your past dictate who you are, but let it be part of who you will become"

- Louis Mandylor.

I can see my future rapidly approaching: it's daunting. Now, the daunting nature of my impending life is not due to the future itself, no, the future is glowing with the warmth and excitement of the unknown, of the unplanned. My fear is deeply rooted in my past and present.

For years I have known that the majority of my decisions are not made for my own benefit. They are made to benefit a number of people in my life. My entire reasoning for life is to appease these people. And everyday I wake up with the firm knowledge that I have failed, and will continue to fail. I will disappoint those people damn-near daily, for the rest of my life. Because that is life. That is my life. 

That can't be my life. Can it? I mean seriously?  

I keep telling myself, I will live my life for me. But every time one of those specific people talk to me, I am suddenly reminded of whom I am actually living for. All I want is to please these people, and I can't. It's impossible. I am constantly striving for perfection: I must be fit, I must be motivated, I must be gregarious, I must be happy, I must be achieved, I must be successful, I must be perfect...I can't help but feel like if I keep striving for that perfection, if I can achieve some version of perfection then no one can ask anything else of me, but I know that's faulty logic. Perfection doesn't exist, and the people I aim to please will never be pleased, and anything achieved will be expected to be surpassed. 

The only thing I can do, is desperately attempt to let go of my need to please, admit defeat, and embrace the inevitable disappointments I will create. Because, at the end of the day, you can either love the imperfect version of me, or constantly be disappointed in the exhausted version of me that's trying to perform the impossible.