Weekly Round Up: The Pursuit Of Perfection Edition
Time for this week’s round-up of the best of the blog posts which I’ve read over the past week. These are the posts that have moved me, taught me something, inspired me, and which I’ve wanted to share with you. Don’t forget if you have written a post which you would like readers to see, just leave a comment below.
I love when themes emerge in the blogosphere, and this week I noticed the theme of perfectionism emerge from your blogs. Both Elizabeth and Eileen have written about the misguided pursuit of perfectionism. I once looked up the definition of “perfect” in the dictionary and found it defined as:
– Lacking nothing essential to the whole: complete of its nature or kind.
– Being in a state of undiminished or highest excellence: FLAWLESS
Pretty high expectations to put on ourselves don’t you think? And yet we do. Elizabeth writes that she is “striving to be more accepting of myself. Part of that is being mindful of my limitation without coming to the conclusion that I am damaged or less than because of them. I am striving to adapt to the particular strengths and limitations that I have as a person. None of us are perfect, but we are all beautiful.” While Eileen shares the words of the beautiful Leonard Cohen song Anthem:
Ring the bell that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
And continuing with the theme of perfectionism is Terri’s latest post on easing up on herself.
Elsewhere in the blogosphere…
How do you tell your friends that you have cancer? Nikki Black was diagnosed last year with breast cancer at the age of 23. She tells her story on the Living Beyond Breast Cancer blog this week.
A very honest and heart-felt post by Beth on the complexities of family relationships in a time of illness.
A bittersweet, beautiful post by Audrey on childhood memories and present-day realities of caring for a mother with dementia.
A captivating folk tale, brilliantly told by Catherine.
Advice from Rachel on ways to lighten your financial load when it comes to cancer costs.
Loved the e.e. cummings poem on letting go that Katie shares on her blog.
Finally this week, I was overjoyed to find our dear friend Jan writing again, and I can’t think of a better way to round-off this week’s reflections than by sharing her words with you:
In the meantime I forge on into 2014, not having known at this time last year if I would even be around to start watching Season 4 of Downton Abbey. But here I am, anticipating it just like so many Americans who don’t struggle with Stage IV anything. Life always has uncertainties; I’m just reminded of that more frequently than most. The key is to find joy in the journey.
Until next week.
Here’s to finding some joy in the journey!
Yours with love
Marie xxx
Thank you. Marie, for a great round-up and for including me. I also love the synchronicity of themes in the blogosphere.
LikeLike
A really good antidote to perfectionism is a wonderful book called The Spirituality of Imperfection. Here is one of my favorite quotations from it:
“To be human is to be imperfect, somehow error-prone. To be human is to ask unanswerable questions, but to persist in asking them, to be broken and to ache for wholeness, to hurt and to try to find ways to healing through the hurt. To be human is to embody a paradox, for according to the ancient vision, we are, ‘less than the gods, more than the beasts, yet somehow both.’
My review here: http://thefranco-americanflophouse.blogspot.fr/2012/05/spirituality-of-imperfection.html
LikeLike
Thank you so much for sharing my little story. I’m so glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
LikeLike
THANK YOU MARIE! Have a great week.
LikeLike
Thank you so much, Marie, for including me and even quoting from my post! Your round-ups are always a treat to read, and encourage us writers to continue doing what we do. You are a treasure and a joy. XOX
LikeLike
Always a pleasure to do the round-up each week and see which themes emerge strongest in your writing. Keep on blogging!
LikeLike
Thank you Marie, for including me again. I feel honored! And lots of great posts here just like every time I stop in.
Terri, when I read the first graph of your post on moving away from the type A habits and not pushing yourself so hard, I thought, sounds to me like she is a STILL a major workhorse (for very good causes now). Then I read on and saw what you were saying … that it’s easy to fall back into long ingrained habits. But all you can do is keep reminding yourself and then working on it again. Sounds like you have a plan to get back on track and “ease up.” I just wish I could come up with a plan and stick to it to change one thing that I hate about myself. I beat myself up, but I beat other people up too. 😦 Happy New Year everyone.
Rachel
LikeLike
Thank you, Marie, for including my post in this terrific round-up. I so appreciate it.
LikeLike
How very cool of John to write that post for Elizabeth Now how many husbands would do that?I thought his post was honest and sweet, and I could relate. I don’t know if I would totally write off folks who didn’t call through cancer, though like John sometimes the reaction or lack of sure impacted me. The only place where I totally draw the line was with a “friend’ who spoke and acted horribly insensitively and selfishly.I think people often tend to continue being who they were before cancer – maybe we are more sensitive to it or it come out more now?
LikeLike