Be Your Perfectly Imperfect Self

“What’s the sense of trying to be something that you’re not?”

Mae West, Night After Night

In the 1932 film Night After Night, George Raft plays the role of a “mug” named Joe, who runs a speakeasy and who’s decided that he’s not good enough being who he is. Every night his establishment is filled with “swells” or rich people of “proper breeding.” And Joe decides he wants to be a “swell.”

So Joe hires a tutor, a professor, to come in everyday and teach him how to be a classy gentleman. We then learn Joe’s real motivation for wanting to remake himself into something that he’s not: Turns out he’s head over heels for a high class “dame” named Jerry Healy.

As the movie progresses, Joe learns that his high class “dame” isn’t any classier inside than he is—or for that matter—any of the other “dames” that he’s ever dated, including Mae West’s character, Maudie. This realization brings him back to understanding that he is—and always has been—good enough just the way he is. And that he doesn’t need to change himself, or try to be something that he’s not, just to impress other people.

When we were small, many of us began the process of changing ourselves into something that we were not. At the time, we were all innocent, beautiful, talented children bursting with love and approval of ourselves and of life. But that wasn’t good enough for Mom or Dad. No, we needed to be PERFECT. Mom or Dad made it clear to us that if we weren’t PERFECT, we could never be acceptable or lovable to others. So we began the impossible quest of trying to change ourselves into being perfect—into being something that we were not and cannot ever be, no matter how hard we try.

As adults, many of us have continued this impossible quest of trying desperately to change ourselves into being the PERFECT person that someone else wanted us to be. Like Joe in Night After Night, we’ve tried to remake ourselves into being what we thought the Jerry’s of the world wanted us to be—Perfect in their image and likeness. And we’ve failed miserably time after time.

Well, today is the day that we choose to stop trying to be what we aren’t: PERFECT. No one on Earth can be perfect. As I’ve said before, all we can be is our perfectly imperfect selves. We can’t be anyone other than who we are, and we don’t need to be what someone else wants us to be. Because who we are IS GOOD ENOUGH for the entire world. Anyone who thinks differently can go to a therapist and find out what’s wrong with him or her! Because, believe me, anyone who can’t accept us just the way we are, has a problem. We don’t have a problem—they do. So we need to allow them to work on changing themselves while we work on accepting and loving ourselves just the way we are!