Books/advice on how to let go of perfection and be happy with where you are?

August 20, 2012 9:34 AM

Books/advice on how to let go of perfection and be happy with where you are?

Someone else is always going be stronger, fitter, smarter, and more talented, than you. Even though I'm generally quite happy with who and what I am in pretty much every aspect of life, I sometimes find myself looking at someone else and thinking "Hmm, they're better [in some facet of life] than I am... am I OK with where I am?". I know that's a normal feeling to have, but sometimes my response is an obsessive ruminating "...hmm, I don't know, do I need to change?..." rather than a resounding "Good for them, but I'm great just as I am!", which ought to almost preempt the questioning itself.

What books or advice have helped you let go of the need to be better, the need to be perfect, and to be happy with where you are (in any aspect of life)?

posted by mcav to health & fitness (14 answers total)

The concept that you are usually comparing your interior to others' exterior is helpful.
posted by thelonius at 9:42 AM on August 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.
posted by John Cohen at 9:43 AM on August 20, 2012

Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach. (I can't tell you how embarrassed I was to be reading this book.) That, and starting to meditate.
posted by feral_goldfish at 9:44 AM on August 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

I love this book by Brene Brown: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are.
posted by Kimberly at 9:45 AM on August 20, 2012

My advice from a previous thread about envying one's friends:

No matter what you do in your life, the rest of the people in the world are still going to exist. Your friend and everyone you've ever met are going to have the same talents and successes and failures and strengths and weaknesses no matter what you do or what your connection is to them (with the exception of situations where you play a role in those successes/failures/whatever). So, once we've taken note of this point, why would you think you'd be better off not having these people in your life?

For instance, I have a friend who went to Yale Law School, widely considered the best law school in the US. I went to law school but could never have gotten into Yale. Is that worth me spending one second of my life feeling jealous about? Of course not, because after all, no matter who my friends are, Yale Law School is going to have a couple hundred new law students, year after year after year. Why does it matter that one of them is this friend of mine? I should only feel good about the fact that I know the outstanding people I know.

posted by John Cohen at 9:46 AM on August 20, 2012

Status Anxiety- Alain de Botton.
posted by jade east at 9:50 AM on August 20, 2012

Start Where You Are - Pema Chodron
posted by desjardins at 10:10 AM on August 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

A profound connection with this from Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (an amazing hot mess of a novel):

“I no longer want to be anything except what who I am. Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’ve gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each “I,” everyone of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time-- to understand me, you’ll have to swallow a world.”
posted by availablelight at 10:31 AM on August 20, 2012 [8 favorites]

That Which You Are Seeking Is Causing You To Seek by Cheri Huber. Her other stuff is also amazing, but this one saved my life in undergrad, and I just returned to it recently for the reasons you list above.
posted by katya.lysander at 11:38 AM on August 20, 2012

I loved How to Want What You Have: Discovering the Magic and Grandeur of Ordinary Existence by Timothy Miller.
posted by easilyamused at 12:22 PM on August 20, 2012

Nthing the Pema Chodron recommendation. Another thing that sounds hokey but I have found actually helps is keeping a gratitude journal - can be as involved or simple as you like. I just make sure that every day I write down five things I am grateful for. Some days it can be a struggle, other days it is a lot of fun. But it really does make you start to realise there is a lot to be happy about in life.
posted by Megami at 12:29 PM on August 20, 2012

I know it's not a book, but check out Amanda Palmer's song "In My Mind", my interpretation is that it's exactly about this.
posted by wannabecounselor at 7:38 PM on August 20, 2012

Another Pema Chodron: When Things Fall Apart. Also, the Stoic philosophers (Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius), Montaigne, Rousseau, Emerson, and Thoreau.
posted by désoeuvrée at 12:32 AM on August 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Late to this, but I learned/was taught to "be in the moment" more, rather than being in my head thinking about all these things and doing all these comparisons, which ultimately don't matter. Regular meditation helps with this practice.
posted by sundaydriver at 12:52 PM on August 22, 2012