Today I know that I need not like everything about someone to enjoy having them in my life. As a child I may have felt defective in some fundamental way. No matter what I did to improve myself and love those around me, the situation only got worse. This made my self-esteem drop and my drive toward perfectionism increase. I could not relax and let myself be who I was and others be who they were. I was worried that it would not be good enough. This has made me picky and judgmental, both with myself and with those close to me. I have trouble tolerating small infractions-I want things to be perfect. Today I recognize that perfection is an illusion, that learning to accept people as they are, myself as I am and life one day at a time brings the safety that I used to think control would bring.

I let go of my need for perfection.

Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well. William Shakespeare