Genuine Trumps Perfect

Ever know someone who’s comfortable in their humanness and simply carefree? You know the type of person I’m talking about. They don’t care if the wind blows through their hair and messes it up, or if their jeans are slightly dirty, or if their behavior is a little naughty. If they’re feeling lazy, they allow themselves to be. They laugh a lot at life and they glide along on their dreams because they aren’t afraid to dream or to take risks. When they fail, they chalk it up to experience, pick themselves up and move on. These are the people that we often refer to as “natural” or “genuine” and most everyone likes them—maybe because they’re a rare breed.

It seems to me that there are very few genuine people of this sort in our world today. Most of us don’t fall into this genuine camp because we are constantly on alert or on our guard. We’re afraid to let our hair down, to look silly or to fail. We’ve developed an insatiable desire to be perfect and we work hard at trying to prove to the world that we are perfect. Since perfection is impossible, and there are no perfect people, we fool no one—at least, not for very long.

You see, when we work hard at being perfect, we are really working hard at being fake—and fake is the opposite of genuine. Genuine people simply accept who they are and everything about them flows with life naturally. “Perfect” people swim against the flow of who they really are. In fact, they exchange their natural flow for a plastic stiffness. They glue their hair in place and brighten their teeth. They work hard at having six-pack abs and paint their faces. Often times they wear expensive clothing or buy expensive cars that they really can’t afford. And they love to use one-upmanship as a way of bolstering their plastic self-esteem. Plastic-perfect people know a little bit about everything and rarely admit to being wrong. Their general conversational pallet is fluff. Sadly, underneath all of this phoniness, is a real person that no one knows.

If we aren’t feeling comfortable in our skin it’s because we aren’t accepting our limitations—our humanness. And we aren’t believing that other people can accept our humanness—the very people who are every bit as human as we are. We’re all in the same boat when it comes to our humanness, and it ain’t a yacht! Plastic people cast judgments against others, genuine people say it like it is and accept people where they’re at. Plastic people dance to the commands of others, genuine people dance to their own natural rhythms. Plastic people look outside themselves for approval, genuine people look inside themselves for approval.

Which sounds better to you? If genuine is sounding pretty good then let the wind blow through your hair today, don’t worry if your teeth have stains or your shoes are a little muddy. Take that eyelash curler and throw it into the dumpster, roll around in the grass and wild flowers, absorb the sun and dream natural dreams that allow your soul to shine!