In Real Love groups, conference calls, and other interactions, certain phrases have crept into use that are not consistent with the principles of Real Love, or that might cause confusion by their use. Recently I began a discussion of such phrases
Phases that Mislead Part 1,
and now weāll continue. In this blog we will discuss one such phrase, and in subsequent blogs weāll talk about some others.
WE'RE ALL PERFECT AS WE ARE
In support groups, in self-help literature, and in some New Thought religions, it is common to use the expression, āWeāre all perfect as we are.ā
Justifications
Justifications for this claim are understandable and include the following, which are simply stated, not claimed as truths:
- God made us. God is perfect, and we are one of his creations, so we must be perfect also.
- There is a perfect plan in the universe orchestrated by a Perfect Being, so we are perfect by virtue of being part of that perfect plan
- If we tend to become what we think of ourselves, believing that we are perfect would motivate us toward perfection. This would be one form of āpositive thinking.ā
- It is ungodly and unkind to think of others as imperfect, so the same reasoning would apply to us.
- We simply donāt like talking about our flaws, so āweāre perfectā is a great way to avoid that discussion.
The Flaws
As tempting as these justifications and reasons might be, the flaws are glaring:
- However perfect God is, the greatest law in the universe is the Law of Choice. He created us with a desire to grow toward perfection, but He will not interfere with our ability to choose, which means we canāand almost invariably doāchoose imperfectly. We are, therefore, NOT perfect, even though we may be growing in that direction.
- Even the most cursory observation of human beingsāeither in the present or from historyāreveals an abundance of murderers, thieves, warmongers, and others whose behavior could not possibly be claimed to be āperfect.ā
- If we refer to ourselves or our behavior as āperfectā when itās not, weāre stuck in a position where we can never learn or grow, since our perfection requires no learning.
- Itās not āunkindā to refer to ourselves as imperfect. Rather, it is simply the truth.
These claims to perfection are well-meaning, but theyāre simply not true and therefore interfere with everything based on the truth: learning, growth, the perception of unconditional love, and more. This phrase or belief may have begun with what many of our mothers or grandmothers taught us: āIf you canāt say something nice about somebody, say nothing at all.ā So, rather than be rendered mute, we came up with āWeāre all perfect as we are.ā
We also have a human tendency to see things as we wish them to be, rather than as they are.
We are much better served by correctly and rigorously identifying things as they actually are than as we wish them to be. I can choose to be āpositiveā and believe that I can jump across a fifty-foot chasmāwhich likely will result in my deathāor I can accept my āimperfectionā and learn how to create a rope bridge between the two cliffs.
So what can we do with this phrase about our perfection?
We could eliminate it entirelyānot a bad idea considering its inaccuracyāor we could modify it in way that could possibly be useful:
- Although weāre not perfect, we can always choose to move toward perfection in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.
- Some of our mistakesāby definition imperfectionsāmake us stronger. Just as our physical muscles grow with stress, so can our emotional trialsāoften resulting from our flawsāstrengthen us toward perfection.
- When we find genuine happiness, it is possible that our path to that condition was perfect for us, despite a great many imperfect decisions and circumstances along the way.
In future blogs weāll discuss more phrases that can be misleading in our discussions of Real Love.