“Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and serenity and your heart will never unclench. Care about peoples approval and you will be their prisoner.” Lao Tzu

Trying to reach perfection can steal time in admiring what already is. Acceptance isn’t an easy task and can often be hard to understand. Acceptance comes from a place deep within our hearts. It is respecting the fact that situations rarely go the way we imagine. There are aspects of ourselves that we wish were different. There are traits in others we would change if we could. Acceptance is finding flaws to pamper with love by whispering “It’s okay.”

Personally, imperfection inspires me. I love the truth behind being nervous before saying something I truly mean. The absence of practice before performing a task. Feeling creative and free enough to design without a template. Dancing without hearing any music. Feeling without regret. This is what makes life beautiful, all the risk and freedom we give ourselves when we allow ourselves to be. Being inspired by all I cannot change brings me closer to my relationship with God – I have a sense of belonging when I walk in authenticity. I find beauty in the unknown when I step forward in faith. If we were meant to be perfect, we would be. Be confident in all your perks – rare emotions – stories that bring others closer to laughter than seriousness – the feel-good days AND the days you wish to stay in – feeling deeply on a topic when others glance over – stay unapologetic and never feel the need to shrink yourself smaller to fit into the comfort of someone else. Believe that you are enough even when others put expectation and weight on being more than what you can give.

When I was away at school there was a moment of admiration when I learned about Kintsukuroi. Kintsukuroi stayed with me throughout the years as a reminder that flaws are an art form. In Japan they began filling broken pottery with gold. When a piece was broken they didn’t see it as an outcome of failure, they saw it as an opportunity to create something even more beautiful than it was before the hardship.

Movement of making something more beautiful and accepted after being flawed is a way of life. Never feel that you have fallen short after being your true self. You are capable of wide greatness in all that you are. Everything you need is within you and it is extraordinary. Developing and practicing this mindset allows you to admire the truth, love with kindness and understand that even when a situation doesn’t end in the way we thought it would, there is rooted purpose into higher creation. Imperfection does not ruin – it interests, enhances and speaks life into who we are and what we stand for.

Nourish the parts that shy away because they do not appear to be perfected. Like talents, our imperfections set us apart with the blessing in what defines our individual purpose.

-Sadianne Joyce

Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow -Vincent van Gogh