The Other Side of Life

There was a man called Bob. He had a brother who was a bit of a moron.  Once, Bob was leaving for a long-awaited vacation for two weeks and asked his moron brother to take care of his cat, while he was gone. A week into the vacation, Bob calls his brother to check in. After the preliminary talk, he asks how the cat is doing. His brother replies, "Oh yeah, about that. The cat died yesterday." Bob was devastated. And also furious. He said to his brother, "How insensitive are you? Couldn't you have broken the news more gently, so I could be prepared?" The moron brother is confused and asks for an example how the news should be broken. So Bob explains, "On the first call, you should have said, your cat climbed up the roof, it's unable to come down. On the second call, you could say, the firemen are here, they are trying their best. On the third call, you say, we are all trying hard, but she's not coming and not eating either. On the ...

Of the many many things wrong with our world, the one that stands out is our emphasis on perfection, even though, we know none of us are perfect. If perfection didn't matter, make-up wouldn't exist. Filters on Instagram would be quite useless.   If perfection didn't matter, we would not fall over ourselves trying to tell the world how much we love each other. There would be no such thing as a perfect love story. There would be no ideal couple. There would be no "made for each other". If perfection didn't matter, we would not judge anyone, for anything. We would make peace with our faults and other's faults. And live in the joy that we are not A+. If perfection didn't matter, we would not make small talk with anyone. Just enjoy the awkward silence of two introverts meeting each other and not knowing what to say. To the world though, perfection matters. So, in a weirdly, twisted, complicated way, we try to put ourselves out there, w...