There’s something I’m admittedly very bad at: letting flaws just be. I consider myself to be a very accepting person who will befriend anyone that I find interesting, regardless of what they look like or where they are in life. I can accept flaws in other people and love them regardless of them. What I can’t do is let them be. For those that I truly love and am close to, I will correct their mistakes. I will ask leading questions to encourage a dialogue around improvement. My aim here is never to shame or embarrass, but simply to right wrongs. I don’t want people to feel judged, belittled, or put down. But I forget that some people are not as concerned about perfection as I am. They don’t see their flaws as flaws, or their mistakes as mistakes. They’re just being.
I myself see my perfectionism as a flaw. I wish I didn’t have it. I wish I didn’t care. I wish I didn’t have to “correct.”
Now, I’m beginning to doubt if I even can accept flaws, or if I’m simply accepting the person in spite of their flaws. In an effort to self-correct, and to better understand and pursue relationships, my new goal is to love people for their flaws, not in spite of them.
The glass box I unknowingly put around my conditional acceptance of others shattered upon coming across some lovely quotes. The first one read:
The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
Thomas Merton: No Man Is an Island
This was really profound for me. Because it’s true. The things that drive me crazy in others are the things I would never identify with. The things I like about them are things I do identify with. Even then, when they reflect qualities I don’t like about myself, I don’t like it in them, either. This isn’t love. And trying to turn the qualities that I don’t identify with into qualities that I do is damaging to both parties. Rather than effectively changing people, I am undoubtedly damaging their sense of self love. I am also damaging the relationship I have with them, since they come to believe my affection is conditional upon their self-corrections. I hate that. I hate that I could do that to someone. It seems that in attempting to correct mistakes, improve flaws, and therefore, help someone I love develop as a person, I am actually doing quite the opposite. While that realization brings me pain, at least I know now and understand the damage this can do, and I can stop doing it.
Flaws aren’t always meant to be corrected. I think they are part of how God designed us, and God designed us perfectly. He made us into exactly who he needs us to be in order to live out his plan for us. However, given our own free will, that plan may not come to fruition if we don’t align our will to his. Qualities like impulsiveness may have been gifted to some to help them find joy in life via wholesome action, and to say “yes” to God’s plan for them as it presents itself. But if they seek pleasure rather than joy, self-satisfaction rather than God’s plan, their impulsiveness can lead them down some very awful paths. Sometimes what you make of a God given quality is a flaw, but used as planned, it is not. Thank you, free will.
So I will celebrate people’s unique qualities. What some consider flaws are the things that make them who they are. The more time you spend with someone, the more you will see these things that make them unique. At first they may annoy you, especially if you’re a perfectionist like myself who likes when people conform to how they are “supposed” to be. But God has already made them how they are “supposed” to be. How awful would it be if He made us all the exact same? How awful to have 7 billion Olivias in this world? Let’s love them for exactly who they are! Let’s celebrate God’s work. Consider how easy it would have been to make the same thing over and over again. Contrast that to the work He put into making each heart and soul different, every body a different color, shape, and size, every mind focused on different things. Surely, He intended diversity to be cultivated, unique qualities to be embraced, and people to be aligned with not just Him, but themselves.
What about people whose “unique qualities” more obviously present themselves as flaws, or who don’t follow my same religious beliefs? Same thing applies. Their qualities are still there for a purpose, and even if you don’t believe in God, they’re still worthy of being celebrated and embraced because they form the person that you love. Even if it’s difficult to see how a given quality can be considered “good,” I will try to think about how those qualities lead to better things. Maybe so and so is a little unproductive, but maybe by staying on the couch they are protecting themselves from joining the downward path of a mischievous group they would have otherwise befriended. Maybe someone else is a bit controlling, but their advice does actually bear fruit even if unwarranted, and they’re just trying to help. I will also try to not label a given quality as good or bad. It just is.
I think it’s mostly a shift in my own mindset. I will put “good” and “bad” qualities on the same field. They are all just qualities that make a person who they are, all to be celebrated and embraced because they form the beautiful creature that you love. Without one of their qualities, they wouldn’t be quite the same. I will watch with love as their life unfolds without trying to interfere with something that’s already beautiful.
“People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying, ‘soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner.’ I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.”
Carl Rogers
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