August: Let’s Talk About Mistakes & Imperfections
I frequently find new truths hidden in old words.
“You are perfectly imperfect” is an idea that I’ve heard be expressed in a multitude of ways. My son’s first grade teacher talks about how “every child is perfect in their own way.” My wife and I often talk about how our individual quirks actually strengthen our relationship. But while I had accepted mistakes and imperfections as necessary for other people, I still found myself seeking perfection and finding disappointment. August and its tiny miracles helped me come to understand that “perfectly imperfect” is more than just a cliche phrase. This realization is only a few days old but is already easily one of the most empowering lines of thought to ever cross my mind, helping to ease much of my anxiety and fear into trust and confidence. I can't think of another time in recent history in which I made more mistakes at work, nor can I remember having more mistakes be justifiably pointed out by my peers than in August. My anxiety went through the roof and I momentarily forgot one of the focal points from last month's blog, a quote from Ursula Burns – "Don't let the world happen to you. You happen to the world."
My outlook started to shift when I signed into a virtual one-on-one and realized I was about to receive what I’d have once called “negative” feedback from someone whose opinion I value greatly. In yet another moment of divine timing, I remembered that walking towards fear always reveals a better version of myself. Instead of allowing my fearful thoughts to diminish my confidence, I focused on who I could choose to be. Nervousness became excitement when I acknowledged I was seconds away from having the opportunity to be someone I was distinctly proud of in the presence of someone I cared about. I am very proud to be a person who learns from their mistakes and seeks forgiveness, but I don’t get to experience that aspect of myself very often.
I had just listened to the chapter about relationships in Neale Donald Walsch’s book “Conversations with God”—easily the most influential book I’ve ever read. It explains that you can’t define what a thing is in the absence of what that thing is not. For example, the concept of light can’t exist without the concept of darkness; you can’t label something as “good” without simultaneously labeling something else as “bad”; you can’t know yourself as limitless until you have known what it means to be limited. Follow this trail of thought far enough and you’ll stumble upon the point of life: for your soul to envision more honest, more enlightened ways of existing that your mind and body then manifest into your physical reality. This is how you come to know yourself as being truly limitless.
This line of thinking alludes to the true importance of relationships. In Walsch’s book, “God” calls relationships holy and sacred because everything you know about reality is in relation to something else. Most people think of relationships transactionally, basing a relationship’s value on how much was taken minus how much was given. This blinds you to the true purpose and value of relationships. You can’t control the external world, but you can consciously and intentionally decide who you want to be in relation to it. Every decision you make and every action you take is an expression of your inner truths.
The degree to which you become more empowered, more confident, more self-assured, more whole in response to a relationship is the real measure of its value. As I listened to my friend explain what turned out to be a minor infraction, my shifted perspective made it easier to follow through with who I had just decided I wanted to be. Pondering how to show that I was listening intently and had no intention of arguing distracted me from any reactive or egotistical thoughts. Afterwards, I was deeply grateful for the opportunity to prove I can forgo my ego for the betterment of my relationships.
Sharing "Let's Talk About Race" at my corporate job in June of 2020 turned out to be one of the most positively impactful decisions I have ever made. I doubt I would have found activism or spirituality otherwise, my relationship with my wife and my ability to parent my sons would be drastically diminished, and my outlook for the future wouldn't be nearly as hope-filled. Two experiences during the week of George Floyd’s murder opened me to the idea of sharing my emotional story. The first and possibly the most pertinent was when 3 coworkers — two white men and an Asian one — stayed on a Webex to check on me after everyone else had left. The man who’d asked me to stay was someone I’d been working with directly for several months, and he simply didn’t accept my “oh I’m fine” response after asking how I was handling the news. I hadn’t realized how much I was holding in, how much I needed to let out, how much I needed someone else to be aware of my inner turmoil until I had word-vomited for some 20 minutes. At one point, the younger of the white men interrupted to share that he too had experienced real trauma and could recognize my pain. He only got out a few words before the more senior white guy chimed in, "[redacted name] shut the fuck up and listen. Don’t talk! Just listen right now.” Everyone muted their microphones. That was the first time a white person had ever defended my Black thoughts. That moment allowed me to see new value and new possibility in my own story.
Jump ahead to August 2024. I was still celebrating having met my peer's grievance with grace when the Universe presented another pill that wasn't as easy to swallow. Shortly after publishing “Let's Talk About Time”, the man who had been told to stop talking in 2020 left this comment on my blog:
"Man, I just have to tell you that I love the message you are carrying, but I have a really hard time squaring it with the time I cried at work and you told me you would punch me if you ever saw me cry again."
While I couldn't definitively remember the moment he had highlighted, no part of me could deny his story; I could recall instances where my old self had said similar things to others. My guilt, shame, and embarrassment left me relieved that only I could see the comment, and for a brief moment the word “fraud” floated around my mind. A philosophy that I stress to essentially everyone I mentor is that each individual emotion communicates a specific message about who you are and who you could be. Their purpose is to signal your attention, not to control your action. Joy highlights aspects of life that should be prioritized; sadness highlights areas that need more attention or care. Anger never held any positive value until I realized it illuminates personal boundaries that I wasn't privy to. I’ve been working to “decode” my emotions for years and only recently articulated the role of shame: it is like a mirror that reflects who I don’t want to be.
Shame and embarrassment turned to joy and appreciation when I realized that this old memory doesn’t reflect who I am or how I think today. Instead of avoiding my discomfort, choosing to experience the full magnitude of my emotions allowed me to quantify and appreciate how much I have grown in recent years. I immediately responded by email apologizing for any hurt I had created, trying my best to express my sincerity and earnest desire for forgiveness, and we went on to have a beautiful dialogue. I suggested that his story was an example of tough love gone awry. I had assumed his tears were caused by a co-worker that I found particularly displeasing, but he had been upset about a death in his family. He went on to point out that had I not failed him so miserably in that moment, he might not have recognized my pain years later in 2020. My failure to support him in his moment of need created the awareness that later urged him to stay in that fateful Webex meeting. Had he not stayed, I might have never created “Let’s Talk About Race” and likely wouldn't have the awareness enabling me to type these words right now. In that moment, I firmly understood that my imperfect mistake was actually a perfect catalyst.
For years, I’ve been aware that my wife’s imperfections are like a personalized fertilizer that inspires my growth. I’ve been stressing to my young sons that mistakes are an important and natural part of life, but it wasn’t until this experience that I was able to truly extend that same grace to myself. Believing that imperfections are perfect is like an extension of last month’s assertion that all timing is divine. Mistakes are divine, too. This acceptance prevents my ego from blocking the flow of guidance constantly being sent by the Universe. Anxiety is living in the future and regret is living in the past. Understanding that imperfections and mistakes and mishaps enable my best life makes it easier to stay in the present moment. And the more in the moment I can be the more magical life becomes, the more freedom I experience, the less daunted I feel by whatever the current circumstances are.
The trick to being limitless is being so certain of your future success that you permit yourself to risk making a mistake, to risk being wrong, to risk being imperfect. I have never felt more capable of manifesting my dreams than I have started to feel in August. When I shared the following tiny miracle stories with a mentor / spiritual friend her response struck me like a lightning bolt—“So what you’re telling me is that everything you dream of is at your fingertips. It just doesn’t exist until you name it.”
One night while sitting around the dinner table as my wife finished plating our food, Hendrix (4) started singing a song I had never heard before—“get off the stage, get off the stage” over and over. After about 30 seconds, his chanting grows to include more words with a defined rhythm and cadence. It’s not uncommon for him to make up songs, and the situation barely warranted any notice until he walked over to my HomePod.“Siri, play the song that goes ‘get off the stage!’” I think to myself, “No way is this going to work,” but sure enough Apple Music starts playing a song.
Hendrix is a tiny man of big convictions and will abruptly stop dancing if he doesn’t like the music. He loves R&B and ballads, long notes and dramatic dance moves. His stuffed animal is currently named “Single Lady” after his favorite Beyoncé song, and he requests her music essentially every night at dinner. I simply couldn’t believe he was dancing along to the rock and roll song playing in my dining room. I had never heard it, it didn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard his nanny or daycare play, and it was of a genre I have never known him to enjoy. I must have asked, “This is the song you meant to play?” no less than 10 times as the interlude played out. When the chorus started, my wife had to stop what she was doing to join the conversation. Hendrix’s words hadn’t been exactly accurate, but his inflection points and rhythmic flow were unmistakable. She asked, “Hendrix, this is the version of the song you wanted to hear?” “Yes.” “Have you heard this before?” she asks. My jaw fell open so hard that it popped when he responded, “No, I made it up!”
The next day, I took both sons out for ice cream after dinner. Baskin Robins is no more than five minutes away, and we stopped at a red light about halfway there. The driver of the truck in front of us must have leaned down to get something from the floor, and when his head popped back up I was surprised by this random succession of thoughts—“Was he asleep? Did he have a seizure? If he had an emergency, what would you do? Why are you thinking about the man in the car in front of you? Would anyone else have even noticed?” Almost immediately, Brixton excitedly chimes in from the backseat, “Did that man just wake up?”
There was a time when such a moment would blow my mind, but it has become fairly commonplace for him to vocalize my thoughts in real time. The light turned green, and we passed a cop car as we went through the intersection. Brixton asked, “Daddy do you remember that time we were playing in the front yard at the old house and a cop car stopped and we told him our names and he gave us a sticker? That was a good memory.” He paused to smile fondly for a moment before going on—“I must have been three. So Hendrix, you must have been maybe one.” Hendrix and I both remembered Brixton’s story about the cop’s star-shaped sticker, and they spent the next few minutes going back and forth about how old they had been. Upon pulling into the Baskin Robins parking lot, I notice a silver Prius backing into a spot. I pull in right beside it and open the door for the boys to climb out. They start to celebrate almost as soon as their feet hit the ground, and I assumed they were cheering for dessert. Instead, they were cheering about the Santa Cruz police sticker placed beneath the Prius’s rearview mirror—the exact sticker they’d just been talking about, on an otherwise unmarked and clean car, placed directly at Brixton’s eye level. The car’s driver got a good laugh when he returned to his car to find me wrangling the two wildly dancing toddlers blocking his door.
August Photos
