I took piano lessons for years. The better I got, the more I had to practice. By the time I left for college I was upwards of two hours per day – minimum. And it was this very thing that caused me to change my major.
This theme played itself out repeatedly in my life. I practiced (or processed or analyzed or strategized or worried or obsessed). It was what was to be done. Practice makes perfect. Perfection was required.
The metronome ticked: keeping me on track, keeping pace, keeping up.
Perfection was required. No matter the melody: dutiful eldest daughter, over-achieving high school student, perfectionistic employee, relationally ravenous, insecure, body image-obsessed, religiously focused, mother, wife…As incessant as scale drills, my fingers repeated the same tonal structure again and again. I went over and over the same seeming-realities in my brain. Breaking down every nuance. Splitting up complex chords. Playing out every scenario. Tick. Tick. Tick. Perfection. Perfection. Perfection. More cacophony than anything else.
- If I just work hard enough, I can make you happy.
- If I diet enough, I’ll be loved.
- If I am dutiful enough (submissive enough, seductive enough, affirming enough, patient enough), my marriage will “work.”
- If I keep my mouth shut enough, conflict won’t result.
- If I ask for forgiveness enough, I’ll be saved.
- If I morph myself enough, I’ll be what you most want and need.
Practice makes perfect. Perfection was required.
ENOUGH!
Just like my first college major, the time came to be done with the practice. A tipping breaking point. To give up (the illusion of) perfection. To change direction. To improvise. To riff. To listen to a deeper melody and follow it’s haunting, intoxicating strain.
Not because I was lazy. Not because I couldn’t or wouldn’t do the work. Not because I wasn’t willing to sacrifice, endure, or persevere. But because I’d done enough.
Because perfection wasn’t/isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Because unless we’re talking about a piano concerto or a ballet performance (or maybe a blog post), perfection is an aspiration that can very easily keep us from living life.
- We sit for hours at the piano and no longer enjoy the music.
- We ponder life’s disappointments (or others’ in us) and groom our self-contempt.
- We problem solve and forget to grieve.
- We obsess with self-improvement and lose sight of our truest, most beautiful self.
- We follow every behavioral rule and turn off all desire.
ENOUGH!
There is a time and a place for developing proficiency, expertise, and yes…even moving toward perfection. But not when it stops us from from hearing the music itself, from living, from playing.
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I still have my metronome. And my piano. Every once in a while I pull out the bench, turn old, worn pages to a distant-but-familiar tune, and play. The years of practice have served their purpose. My fingers recall what they once knew. Perfection is far from present. But I play. Oh, how I play.
I would hope the same for you.
Maybe you’ve practiced (or processed or analyzed or strategized or worried or obsessed) enough. Maybe your demand for perfection (of self and perhaps others) has become a rote, tinny, and dissonant sound. Maybe you’ve done enough. Maybe you’ve done more than enough. Maybe you’re not too much. Maybe your fingers (and heart) ache from too many hours/days/years of effort. Maybe it’s time to play.
Turn off the metronome. Take the leap. Defy gravity. Follow the melody your heart longs to sing. And tell your truth. It’s more beautiful than any concerto ever composed.
No more practice (or perfection) required.
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While growing up, I practiced the piano in the basement of our house. It took a long time before my performances were shared; before I’d let others really hear what I had learned, and yes, perfected. Telling the truth is often the same: we need time, space, safety, and maybe even a basement in which to practice; to hear it’s tune for ourselves, and then, when ready, to allow (or require) others to hear it as well. Never perfect, but no less powerful, poignant, or passionate. Truth-Caching is a process that will invite such. It’s an invitation to discovering, retrieving, and un-earthing your truth in kind, compassionate, practiced (though hardly perfect) ways. The beta-test is on the way (just a few more chords and scales to compose). Sign up to hear that melody first; the inside scoop is days away.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
We’re on the same wave-length, Ronna! I’ve been watching this for a couple of weeks or a month or so, after it just welled up …. enough of the constant ‘working on one’s self’ (which is basically an underlying belief that we’re never ‘good enough’, and also a constant focus on ‘what’s wrong with us’!). Wild. It was a wake-up to that underlying belief … perpetual fault (original sin…it’s a baked-in belief!). What if we’re beautiful just as we are, even as we continue to unfold and evolve that beauty?
Blessings,
Jamie
What if, indeed, Jamie. Beautiful – your words, your journey, and yes…inherent and ever-quickening beauty. Thanks for being here.
Yes! There is beauty in our frailty if we could but allow ourselves to see it. We do not have to be perfect to be valuable or loved. To be human means to be fallible but that doesn’t prohibit us from being precious and worthy of love, respect, joy and contentment.
Ditto. Exactly. “Perfect,” Janet.
I know this story all too well. Reading it brought back some memories.
I was just thinking earlier today at how uncompassionate it is of me to expect perfection from others when I am working so hard to love the *im*perfections I possess.
I stuffed the metronome under the sofa cushion, but apparently I still hear the tick-tock…..
It’s one thing to work on ourselves, isn’t it, Alicia? And another thing entirely to work on how we work on others…I hear you loud and clear!
Roger that.
I’m so big on imperfection that I’ve embroidered and sold pillows that say, “imperfection is a beautiful thing.”
Love this!!!
spot on Ronna.
” Follow the melody your heart longs to sing. And tell your truth.”
My intention for today, my life.
thank you.
Oooh, love that you’ve chosen this, Callahan! Always so significant when I see what others hear. Thank you.
Hi Ronna,
I learned the piano between the ages of seven and 17. I practiced chords until I drove my parents mad and they bought me a Yamaha Clavinova digital piano and a set of headphones. I practiced through exam after exam – some I scraped through, some I passed with flying colors, depending on what else was going on in my life at the time. I practiced through recitals at concerts and lesson after lesson after lesson after lesson.
The thing was, I never felt like a natural piano player. I wasn’t one of those people who are born gifted with the ability to play by ear. I had to really work at it.
The wonderful thing was, though, that once I had mastered a piece, I had the ability to master expression through the music. I made the notes sing!
However, the incessant practice, the constant need to attain perfection drummed the enjoyment right out of piano playing for me.
There are areas in our life where practice is necessary. Self-discipline is required to get us where we want to be. However, if the enjoyment isn’t there anymore – if the passion doesn’t exist for us – then we must move on and allow our truth flames to ignite elsewhere…
I’m so with you, Nikki – on all counts. And yes, there are times when we must practice…on so many things. I wonder what would happen if we used passion as the rubric for the things we practiced. ‘Would make the results and the movement toward “perfection” so much more compelling, driven, and enjoyed.
So grateful you are here.
Over the last few days I have thought a great deal about all the demands I put on myself and others and how unloving it is to do so. It is as if I have lived my life as if I was part of some great Test that I only partly understood the rules for. Consequently I permanently judge myself and compare myself to others to see how well I am doing. It is time to stop. There is a lovely poem by Mary Oliver called Wild Geese that begins, ‘You don’t have to be good’ … I guess you could substitute the word right or perfect in the place of good and the poem would still make sense. How freeing to be able to leave behind the world of demands and just live and breathe and be.
I’m breathing more deeply just reading this, Janet. So much truth within these sentences. May it be so.
You put it so well, Janet. That’s so true.
That was in response to your first post, but somehow it’s way down here.
In response to your second… I love the idea of simply ‘being’ and unlocking the shackles that bind us to standards of perfection that simply aren’t within our grasp as fallible people.
Unlocking the shackles that bind. Beautiful. True. Let’s do it!
xo
Love this, Ronna. I’ll never forget when I finally understood that perfection wasn’t the point and I had no business trying to be perfect all the time. It dawned on me in my first week at law school that I wasn’t going to be the best or the most perfect student given all the bright minds in class. Even though I didn’t like law school, that bit of education was worth it. It changed everything.
I agree: it changes everything AND it’s a lesson I constantly have to re-learn. Dammit! I want to be perfect at not feeling like I need to be perfect!!
Yeah me too. One of my ‘shackles’ is my need to prove or validate myself as a worthwhile person and the equal of others. But do I really need to prove this? Surely if deep down I know I am OK then does it matter if others don’t/can’t/won’t see it?What is my fear? Is it that if I don’t assert myself then I will somehow be less than I am? But surely I can never be less than I am? I can never be less than a beautiful manifestation of the creative, loving, expressive, generous and gracious source of LIFE! If others can’t see that then too bad!
Yes. Yes. Yes!