When I just uploaded the pic I took of this calendar page I realized it's out of focus. I'm kind of in a hurry this morning. I have to finish packing for my trip West, where I'm going to visit my daughter and write and go to running camp #2. I still have food to make and a car to load. I have to go the gas station and the bank. And I have to go to my killer Wednesday interval workout with my coach. Oh, then I work for a few hours and then I hit the road. I saw the blurry photo and was going to retake it when it hit me that it's kind of perfect exactly the way it is. In fact, it's not perfect, which is the whole point.
There is a traditional Japanese aesthetic called Wabi-sabi, which basically means there is imperfection in everything, beautiful imperfection:
a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection; appreciating beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.
I run up against Fear a lot. Fear blurs my focus, and one of the many tools it uses is the idea that I'm going to fall short, or whatever I'm about to do I've done better in the past, or I won't measure up to other people doing the same thing. It's called perfection, and I think when Fear doesn't want to work very hard where I'm concerned it kicks back in its' Lazy Boy and just throws out the idea I wonder if I'll measure up? It's all Fear has to do; he knows I'll run with it.
It's been working on me the last few days, this will I measure up thought. I'm writing this post every day which has been a big challenge on top of everything else on my plate. When I got through Fear's first tactic of it's too much to do, then Fear pulled out are you publishing sub par work by insisting on posting every day? Is that smart? Is that really what you want to do? I bought in a little so it gained some traction. Then it bled into going to camp. Wow, run camp again?? Did you see the itinerary? You aren't really up for that, are you? And do you remember last time? You were the slowest one there...just sayin'...
And that's where it found me this morning--packing for camp, scared about my workout, and needing to sit down and write this post. Fear was sitting pretty comfy kicked back in the recliner--I may have even delivered a cup of coffee to him. I scanned my wall, saw this quote, took the pic, and uploaded it to my blog page. Ut oh, your photo is blurry, Fear said. Damn. I stood up to get my phone to retake the photo, and I remembered Wabi-sabi. I sat down and looked at it--sort of blurry, not terribly blurry. Huh. Good enough. Kind of perfect, ironically, for this post. Like a shot, Fear was up and out of the recliner, which made it a lot easier for me to push him out and close the door.
I know what I want and I know what I'm working towards. All of that fear that poses as perfection just creates a maze that turns me around and slows me down. Focus, on the other hand, makes the path clear. I know where I'm headed, even if the terrain isn't always easy. Gratefully the terrain isn't always easy. Even when there are detours and new paths I wasn't expecting, and even when the path occasionally runs out and I have to double back, when I can stay focused on where I'm heading the transience and imperfection is beautiful, and I can embrace the Wabi-sabi of it all.