I didn't eat my own wedding cake. I had a food fight with it in the street the night before my wedding. The cake was horrendous...I had made it myself and gotten a little too zealous with the rose water, so my friends and I had one last hurrah to celebrate. What else is a Mormon girl going to do the night before her wedding?
The ingredient that made my cake a terrible cake is also what turned it into one of my favorite moments. Had I perfected my recipe and created what I'd set out to do, it's memory would have died with the night. Instead, its flaw was its greatest asset.
I've found the same phenomenon with people, too. Flaws can bring us together, help us let our guards down and lean into the fact that we're all experiencing an imperfect journey. When we're not competing to show who's the best, we're picking each other up and moving collectively farther. When we get to the finish line, we then have people to enjoy the victory with.
I'll admit though, when it comes to people, I'm more tempted to try to fix their flaws than I was with the cake. When I go to church and someone says something hurtful, I don't want to embrace them, I want to lecture them, I want them to feel my pain and understand why my way of thinking is correct. There are only certain flaws I have learned to accept with grace. However, I believe the key to peace with each other lies in bridging that gap, in leaning into our human frailties and acknowledging that, in some ways, other people's imperfections are merely a mirror of our own.
Sometimes I think the purpose of our earth life is like a toddler with a crayon: the potential to paint the Mona Lisa lies in all of us, but the first step is learning to scribble on the paper. When we give other people permission to scribble too, it stops being about who can draw the best picture, and more about who we make friends with while we practice. And we sometimes forget that scribbling is in fact a learned skill. Children aren't born with the motor skills to even hold a crayon, let alone draw with one. I have to remind myself of that when the church isn't what I want it to be; it's made up of people who are all learning how to scribble. I am one of those people. And I think if I were to compare any single person's life work with another's, we would find that the gap in our understanding and abilities isn't quite as wide as we like to believe.
Questions to ponder when you're frustrated with other people's mistakes
- Am I willing to be part of the solution? If so, what does that look like from me?
- What is the most generous explanation for their behavior that I can truthfully believe right now?
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mental awareness • EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE • value affirmation • spiritual nourishment
"If you aren't afraid to experience any negative emotion, you will lose the fear of fear. And when you don't have any fear of negative emotion, you will catapult your life because it won't hold you back." Brooke Castillo
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References
Brooke Castillo, The Life Coach School Podcast, epidsode #534 "Be a Badass - Obstacles"
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