The art of being imperfect

"The pursuit of perfection is a bit like wandering on an aimless journey. You keep walking and walking, but you’re not sure that you’re getting any closer to your destination." - Matt Plummer

I had the worst day this past Saturday. You know, one of those bad days that you can’t quite explain when you are just in a bad mood, and you can’t put your finger on why. Of course, it then had a snowball effect where I felt as though I was walking through the streets of New York City, upset at the world and myself. Here’s what happened: I woke up early to go to dance class, and I think it went downhill from there. It was one of the worst classes I have ever taken, which was no one’s fault but my own. For some reason, my brain wasn’t getting the signals to my legs quickly enough, and I couldn’t pick up the combinations fast enough. I felt sort of like Bambi on ice or maybe Elaine from Seinfeld when her legs were doing something very different than what she (probably) intended when dancing at the party. 

What I imagine I looked like on Saturday.

In reality, my frustrations stemmed from placing an unnecessary goal of perfection on myself instead of just having fun. I should have congratulated myself for waking up early on a Saturday morning (I want to emphasize that I am NOT a morning person) when I could've just as easily stayed in bed, but no, I wanted the class to go perfectly. I wanted to feel effortless and have that same feeling I used to have when I was dancing more regularly. It sounds so nonsensical and ridiculous because I am not a dancer of the New York City Ballet or Alvin Ailey, or any other prestigious company where it matters more. Yet, I decided to place unattainable standards of perfection on myself.

What does this have to do with eating and the non-diet mentality? I promise I’m getting there, and I have a few more sentences of venting to get through here. Here’s the thing: I was having the worst dance class, and the annoyance at myself and the embarrassment of feeling like my peers were judging me was making it worse. I could have brushed this aside and said this is just one single class and an hour and a half of my day. No one was really paying attention to me because everyone was also very focused on themselves, and even if they were, no one would be thinking about this after class. I could have just shrugged this off and said there were other great moments of class that I did enjoy or that everyone, including professional dancers, has off days. I could have and should have, but I didn’t. I was grumpy for the rest of the day and chose to let that one hour and a half affect my whole day.

Do you ever notice this happening when you eat foods you don’t intend to or maybe eat past fullness on certain days? We take those couple of hours and let it hang over us for a few days afterward. We swear off all comfort foods and scold ourselves for our lack of discipline and control. In other words, we let that one uncomfortable scenario take control, and in some cases, we let it affect us for days at a time. Just like my bad day on Saturday, we feel ashamed for not doing what we originally intended. As I was cooling off my emotions yesterday, I actually started thinking how similar my feelings were from that class to the feelings of when we put pressure on ourselves to restrict in some form or another, and when we inevitably fail, we beat ourselves up over it.