I love the beach. Any beach. It’s my favorite place in the world, especially when I’m with my family. It’s the only place where I don’t think about work and all the things I need to do back in the “real world.” ?When I was younger though things were very different. I didn’t care for the beach. In fact, I’d much rather be at a pool than a beach. Part of this was surely due to the fact that I spent 10-15 hours a week training to be a swimmer but it was mostly due to the fact that I felt the beach was dirty and imperfect. The water was full of fish crap, seaweed, and little kid’s pee. Oh yeah, it was murky and salty too. The sand stuck to you, got in your bathing suit, and even at the best beaches was full of trash like?cigarette?butts and plastic bottles. The beach was slanted and soft which made it hard to run on. The waves made it hard to swim. And on and on. In comparison to the ‘perfection’ of a swimming pool, a beach just simply couldn’t stack up in my mind. Swimming pool’s had clean, crisp lines; clean water, no sand or waves, and most definitely no trash. Now I’d take the beach over the pool any day. What changed? My realization that there can be perfection in imperfection. Things don’t have to be nice and neat and ‘perfect’ to be PERFECT. A great beach is perfect just as it is. People can be perfect despite their shortcomings. Your life can be perfect despite the seeming holes. Find perfection in the imperfect.
NB- I’m often-mocked for my perfectionism. So I’m not downplaying the importance of getting things right or striving for the best…just saying that there are times when it’s best to accept things for what they are. A pool will never be a beach and a beach will never be a pool and there’s nothing wrong with that.