Perfection

Do we have free will? Or is everything we do planned out in advance by some omnipresent force? This question drives at the heart of what it means to be human. Your answer subtly guides every decision. 

I think most of us tend to believe that we have control over the majority of our lives. It’s hard not to. Proven psychological phenomenon, such as the Dunning-Kruger effect, and the illusion of control bias, give credence to this very human condition. We think we have more control than we actually do, and we think we’re better than average. 

One of the contributing factors to the over confidence of the Dunning-Kruger effect is the self-view. How do we feel about our ability to do a certain task? Do we think we’ll be able to do a good job when the time comes? This belief in our future ability, or self-view, actually affects our assessment of how we performed the task more than our actual performance of said task.

How is this self-view formed? Our bodies and our feelings give us feedback. We draw on this feedback from previous experiences to construct our expectations. These expectations act as the yardstick for the actual assessment of the experience. This assessment then guides our belief in our future ability to handle that situation, if it were to come up again. It’s all one big confusing circle, but bear with me.

Inherent in each of our self-view’s is free will. We think, to varying degrees, that we each have the ability to shape ourselves and the world around us. It’s almost unhuman to deny the feeling of having free will. It’s safe and comfortable. And it feels so real. Plus, thinking about not having free will can get pretty grim. It can feel like we’re doomed to live the lives we live. Which tends to freak us out.

But I’ve realized that I rarely ever entertain the other side of the coin. What if this ability to change is all in our heads? What if we don’t have any power to change anything at all? What would that feel like? What would be the implications of that? 

Simulation theories and meaningless existence quips aside, pondering this question has implications across the board. One of the more interesting wrinkles being, the increase in contentedness that would ensue. I mean, if we couldn’t change anything, we’d probably appreciate what we already have more, right? This is the latest stop in the deconstruction of my need to always make everything better.

I’ve felt “side-effected” for around 25% of 2019. Meaning I’ve been couch or bed bound for about 80 days so far this year. This whole cancer thing provides me with an endless swath of opportunities to work with this need to control and make myself better.

If you’re at all into the self-improvement game, like me, you have probably heard about controlling the controllables. With the ultimate “controllable” being yourself. “You can’t control what happens to you but you can control how you react”. I’m a big believer in that. I’m also a big believer that controlling the controllables is not an excuse to beat the shit out of yourself. Needing to control ourselves 100% of the time isn’t healthy, nor possible. We can do everything “right” but still have bad shit happen to us. 

But making the distinction between external and internal is a crucial first step. For this particular situation, it’s more physical and mental. My lack of ability to feel like I can control the physical has created a thirsty desire for control over the mental. Which has led me to buy into the idea that I can rid myself of all the bad, painful things I experience, if only I knew how. Ultimately, what I’ve been striving to do, through mindfulness and other mental practices, is detach myself from my body and become this perfectly equanimous figure with light pouring out my eyes 24/7. Can you feel the pressure? Cause I sure can.

This self-view I have, that I can think my way of out feeling like physical shit, is impacting how I assess my actual ability to deal with the days the side effects are particularly potent. It’s scary feeling the side effects coming on, especially when I know I’m over exerting myself. But those are also some of the most worthwhile moments, because I’m usually not in my house. The fear comes from that assessment of my ability to handle it when it comes. That assessment, at least up till this point, has always been that it could be better. Because, well I still feel the pain and still experience the gloomy attitude that comes with it. The self-doubt is not far behind as I wonder “what am I missing? What could I be doing to make this situation better?”. 

So when my therapist asked me last week, “what if you didn’t actually have the power to make yourself feel better?”, it punctured that pressurized ceiling. I’ve been putting a lot of hard work into building my internal trust up. So I can realize, in real time, that I already do an outstanding job of making myself feel the best I can on those bad days. There’s nothing else I need to do because I’m already doing it. I just have a really hard time believing that.

Inner trust is not the arrogant overconfidence described in the Dunning-Kruger effect. Nor is it the needy wanting of control purported by the illusion of control bias. Inner trust transcends that. Inner trust is believing that, when the time comes, you’ll know what you’ll need and be able to get it for yourself.

However, its dubious nature makes it elusive. We have to prove to ourselves that it’s there. We have to work to build it, and the work it requires is the very thing we’re trying to get rid of, doubt. We have to be unhappy with the current situation and work with it in order to prove to ourselves that it’s already perfect. We have to get squeezed and pummeled by the waves of not good enough, to come to the conclusion that it is good enough. If we just settle for that right off the bat, we miss our opportunity. Only reinforcing our fear in the process.

We’d be wise to heed the advice of Wayne Dyer:

The way to a peaceful life is to notice the perfection in God’s world and in ourselves, and nurture that perspective.

Yet, I never think of myself in this way. Perfect, me? Never. I can always be working on something. I can’t afford to think of myself as perfect because then I’ll stop working hard and get fat and lose my job. Right? That’s the fear of contentedness. Well, guess what? We’re not programmed that way, we’re programmed to want to achieve, it’s a survival mechanism. It’s our default.

Perfection dangles on a string as we run in place chasing after it on our respective treadmills. We’ve put perfection up a pedestal that none of us can ever reach. We’ve hijacked perfection to mean everything’s “good”, that it’s only the immaculate and unblemished that are perfect. But, to me, perfection is so much more than that. Perfection is suffering. Perfection is heartbreak. Perfection is pain. Perfection is ugly, misshapen and disgraceful. It’s all of it, it’s everything. Perfection is exactly what’s happening right now, minus our belief of how it should be.

I live near the beach and love to watch/listen to the waves. I get awe-struck by how sublime and perfect it all is. I get like that a lot when I’m observing natural landscapes or looking up at the stars at night. It’s incredible. The contrast of colors. The immensity of it all. The laws of nature seem perfect to me. But, what I try to remind myself more of, is that that perfection exists within me, because I, and you as well, am nature too.

There’s this saying in eastern religions, “tat tvam asi“, it translates from Sanskrit to mean “you’re it” or “you are that too”. We are each already it. And it is perfect. Not in the pompous, chest thumping way. But in the quiet knowing that we are existing just as we should way.

The concepts of free will and fate are just that, concepts. Figuring out who or what is in control isn’t the point. But trying too can certainly open us up. The point is to pay attention to precisely what’s happening in our lives with love and compassion. It’s about unlearning our unworthiness so we can free ourselves from needing to always fix our problems.

Threading the needle between making things better and things being perfect just the way they are is a lifelong exercise. Always needing to flex our “get better muscle” seems a little bit like hell to me. But being forced into contentedness with everything exactly the way it is is right there next to it. Luckily, we don’t have to choose one or the other.

For me, at the moment, “getting better” means not needing to feel like I need to always get better. “Getting better” means awakening that deep inner knowing and trusting it. Getting better means getting out of my own way and celebrating who I already am, flaws included. 

What does “getting better” look like for you right now?