How to Accept Your Life as it is Because Life isn't Perfect

How to accept your life

Life isn’t perfect, it’s going to have good times and bad times and that’s just fine.

Have you ever wondered if life is really meant to be perfect? We see perfection everywhere these days, on Facebook and Instagram, in films and magazines. We are constantly bombarded with celebrities who seem to live perfect lives and friends and family on their social media posts also seem to live in some sort of perfect reality.

There is so much reinforcement everywhere of this dream life, that it can often make our own lives seem mundane, hard, and anything but perfect.

Is this all smoke and mirrors though? Is everybody else living the dream and are we the ones just struggling through day-to-day trying to obtain something that so often just seems out of reach?

It can be so difficult striving for this supposed perfection all of the time; the perfect job, partner, weight, house, holiday, social life… whatever it is that you are looking for. It can make us question ourselves in every area of our lives…… and ask the question “What am I doing wrong that my life isn’t as perfect as everyone else’s?”

The writer John Ruskin said. “ Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know in life” and in saying this he is correct. From an early age, we learn that life is not perfect it is a fact of life that we need to understand as soon as we are able because no matter how hard many people try to have a perfect life, it is never going to happen.

Here’s the thing…..Life is NOT meant to be PERFECT!!!. and that is fine, you don’t need it to be and it never will be, not in every area, all of the time. Really what is the perfect life anyway? What one person judges as perfection can fall far short of what another person believes it to be, so why do we put so much pressure on ourselves to live this life that is always out of our reach?

Shouldn’t we instead be positively focusing on our life and just be striving for a good life, a life that we love and that brings us happiness, and just accept that it’s not always going to be perfect for a lot of the time and make peace with that?

Be happy with who you are and stop trying to live everybody else’s life

How we can learn to break these thoughts?

There are always going to be good times and bad times in our lives. We need the bad times so that when the good times show up we can appreciate them and revel in them. If life was perfect all of the time, how would you know? What would be your benchmark to measure it against?

The imperfect days just make the perfect days even sweeter. The problem is too many people don’t seem to understand this idea and so are always striving for the dream that they imagine everyone else is living.

Knowing that life isn’t perfect and then rationalizing these thoughts are two different things. We can admit something to ourselves as fact but acting on it is something different altogether. We need to accept that our life isn’t perfect and that we are going to be fine and there are several ways that we can do this.

Gratitude

Constantly comparing your life to somebody else is an unhealthy way of living as it can make you dissatisfied with what you have and can make you feel depressed.

Far better, is to accept your life even with the imperfections in it and acknowledge all the things that you do have that make it wonderful….. and there are lots of them!

Most people list all of the things that they don’t have or all of the things that they want but when you turn this around and list all the things that you have already you will be surprised at how big the list actually is.

Living your life through gratitude is very easy to do, all it takes is for you to think about all of the stuff that you have in life to be grateful for.

OK so you may want a new car, but you probably already have a car, so be grateful for that one. Just think, some people would love to own any car. Work through everything that you have in your life at this moment and be really grateful for it. It doesn’t just go on material; possessions either.

There are many things in life to be grateful for that many people take for granted. Your health is no doubt the biggest thing to be grateful for and how many people would love to have good health yet don’t? having access to clean water, good roads, warm homes or an abundance of food are all things to be grateful for every day as there is always somebody lacking.

You will be amazed at how it can make you feel and how it can make you fully realize that life is not so bad after all. Yes, it may not be perfect when you compare it to somebody else but it’s still pretty good

Live with empathy

It seems hard sometimes to reconcile this idea when you look at the life of someone rich and famous, after all these people really do have it all……or so we are led to believe.

This isn’t the case though and they can quite often be experiencing just as bad a time as everyone else.

Having money and fame does not make life perfect. Naturally, money takes away many worries and concerns that a lot of people face but it doesn’t guarantee happiness or a perfect life.

Being empathetic to those around you can make you understand that nobody’s life is perfect, even if from the outside it may look like it. When we start to see life through the eyes of someone else, we can start to see that maybe their life isn’t as perfect as we thought.

Empathy gives us a fuller understanding of the lives of other people and can help us put our own lives into perspective and understand that chasing perfection isn’t what life is all about.

We all have the same worries and concerns at some time or other in our lives. Instead of judging your life against another, just concentrate on yourself and think kindly towards other people as they will at times be living a less than perfect life also.

Try to not judge people

Judging others is something that we can all be guilty of at times. We can tend to be quite harsh if someone doesn’t seem to appreciate all that we perceive them to have, especially if it is something that we are lacking.

When we judge other people, we are really acknowledging what we feel is missing in our own lives or areas of our lives that we are not satisfied with.

By understanding that nobody is perfect and not judging people on failed perfections we will be a lot more content in our own lives.

Take people as they come without expressing an opinion or a need to change them and you will notice a difference in your feelings towards yourself.

Live Mindfully

Living in the moment is a great way of just being happy and accepting of all that you have at this moment in time.

Even if life isn’t perfect, just taking five minutes out to appreciate the moment can do wonders for how you are feeling.

We seem to live our lives at 100 miles an hour so just taking some time out in the present and just focusing on the moment can be incredibly rejuvenating Instead of looking to the past with dissatisfaction or projecting the same thoughts onto the future and being unhappy, being present in the now should bring you calm, peaceful thoughts. Practising mindfulness teaches us to view our lives in a new way.

This moment in time is all we ever have and is all we should ever focus on.

Much of what we see as imperfection in life is often about things that haven’t even happened so why would you be negatively focusing on them? Living in the moment helps us to see the flaws but to accept them and to be contented with life anyway.

Life is all about light and dark, good and bad, happy and sad. It’s perfect and imperfect, after dark there is light so just remember although it may not be perfect all the time you will have moments of perfection so just enjoy it!

Learn how to grow

Realising that our lives are not perfect presents us with the opportunity to grow. Once we have acknowledged that life isn’t perfect and that there are maybe things that need to be changed we can go about doing so. Life is all about growth.

From the moment we are born, we come into this world needing to grow and learn. Making mistakes and being imperfect is all part of that learning process. Without imperfections or admitting to them, we would never need to push ourselves and become better.

An imperfect life gives us the greatest chance to make certain parts of our life perfect.

Imperfection allows us to slow down.

The acceptance of an imperfect life means that we can learn to slow down and enjoy life. That perfect home that you see in a magazine is staged.

Nobody can live in utter perfection all of the time, it’s impossible. The realisation of this means we can take it easier, we can stop trying to live in the perfect place because it doesn’t exist.

Instead, we can do the things in life that we enjoy and that please us, the times that rejuvenate us instead of always trying to achieve a perfection that doesn’t even exist.

Final Thoughts

Life isn’t perfect and it isn’t meant to be perfect either. It never has been perfect and it’s never going to be perfect. It’s messy and complicated, it can be unpredictable and dissatisfying.

This is a good thought to have though as it can stop us from chasing that impossible dream.

It can be imperfect and can bring us challenges and disappointments, we can have days of great sadness and days when we are feeling stuck or that nothing is going our way.

It can also fill us with joy and happiness take us to places that we never thought possible and give us experiences that are beyond our wildest dreams.

We need to learn to live with the acceptance that sometimes life is going to suck and at other times we are going to experience the greatest feelings imaginable.

We also need to learn to understand that everyone in the world, regardless of their wealth or where they live, is also going to experience life in exactly the same way.

Knowing this fact to be true should give us all the breathing space in our lives to not be too hard on ourselves. Without the bad stuff happening in life, we will never really be able to fully appreciate all the good stuff so be glad that your life isn’t always perfect and just enjoy living and everything that goes with it.

Embrace your life, revel in it, the perfect and the not-so-perfect parts of it. Be grateful for all that you have, your health, family, friends, home, job, whatever it may be.

Celebrate the imperfections and enjoy them. Don’t compare your life to anyone else’s.

Be happy for all that you have and live in the moment experiencing all that this amazing world has to offer, even when it’s not perfect. Imperfection should never dampen your happiness.

Live in the moment and brush off what isn’t perfect instead look for all the amazing things that you have and celebrate them instead.

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