‘Every block of stone has a statue inside it, and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.’ Michelangelo.

If there is one thing, we all have in common as human beings and that is the ability to make mistakes, be imperfect, have defects, fall short, commit errors etc. And we all know the feelings that accompany mistakes, failures and imperfection.  We simply want to delete them from our brain as soon as they occur. Get a button and press Delete. But we can’t. And maybe it’s good that we can’t.

10,000 failures later

The inventor of the light bulb Thomas Edison made 10,000 failed attempts before he managed to put on the light.  And he looked on every one of those attempts as a learning curve. For Edison, negative results were as valuable as positive ones because as he said himself ‘I can never find the thing that does the job, until I find the ones that don’t.’  

Recently during Lockdown, I tried experimenting with different recipes to liven things up a bit. As we all know, experimenting with new recipes brings its share of disasters and imperfect products. Just omitting a small ingredient or miscalculating an amount of sugar or flour can result in a mess. And imperfect products and situations are not nice. They leave us feeling a bit powerless and helpless. 

So, one afternoon I decided to cook a chocolate sponge cake. I had made it before (a long time) and of course thought I knew the recipe without having to check it either in a book or on the internet. And guess what? I could hardly remove it from the baking tin. So much for my ability to cook without exact measurements. And I am left with the feelings of hopelessness and shame at what people will think of me. That I am a hopeless cook? A careless person? Useless?

Emotional responses to failure

Facing the fact that I am imperfect can bring with it many different emotional responses none of which are trustworthy or motivational. When I accept  the fact that yes I did make a mistake in not calculating the right ingredients, or not going slow enough, then I am on the way to behaving a bit like Thomas Edison -using my mistakes as leverage to improve a bit in some small aspect of my life. 

I remember one day in school a student who was highly motivated but very young (only 13 yrs.) cried when she received 96 marks in a test. The fact that she had lost four marks and failed to get the 100 caused her a huge degree of suffering for days. I was saddened to witness how many students lost valuable time and opportunities because they were unable to absorb the lessons underlying failure and imperfections. 

No one likes to feel powerless. We need to feel in control. This desire for power and security is innate in us.  

The courage to fail and to succeed

It takes courage, and repeated acts of that same virtue of courage, to both face and accept imperfections in ourselves and in other people. We are all afraid of failure or not measuring up in some way. Afraid of what other people might think of us when they see our imperfections. Fear is a dominant emotion that we need to tackle.

It might just mean that I have to be more honest with myself. Honest to face what I am. And honest to face what I am not. Take the case of Harry Potter creator, J.K. Rowling. Rowling admits honestly that one of her greatest fears was Failure. But when she encountered failure in the form of losing her job, an abusive marriage, having no money and bordering on homelessness, she found herself freer than she had ever been in her life. In her own words she states that in this state of destitution with nothing but imperfections and failure she was freed. Freed from her fears and free to begin again. Which she did in a powerful way as she said with just three things – a daughter whom I loved, an old typewriter, and a big idea. Look at what she has done with her old typewriter and her big idea!

Imperfections humanise us 

Imperfections humanise us and make us more accessible as people. I know I am more likely to open up about my vulnerabilities and imperfections to someone who I know will understand me. And that person is ordinarily someone who also has obvious defects and weaknesses themselves. 

Imperfections help us mature and savour the wisdom and lessons of life. And the art of ACCEPTING imperfections presupposes the ability to journey forward towards our ideal or goals better. When we refuse to accept the fact that we are imperfect, we remain blind to our reality as limited mortals. We stay stuck in a cul-de-sac mentality unhappy, afraid, frustrated and going nowhere.

‘I saw the Angel in the marble, and I carved until he was set free.’   Michelangelo.

 Maybe those imperfections are sculpting that angel that is hidden away in each one of us.