When is it perfect?

Waking up after snoozing the alarm twice, you think—I’m already 10 mins late—Not a perfect morning.

Rushing out the door, you meet your sweaty neighbor back from pumping iron in the gym. Your thoughts? I haven’t worked out in days. My fitness is far from perfect.

When you're driving to work, you can't wait to be there. When you're there, you can't wait for lunchtime. When it's lunchtime, you are anxious about why your subordinate hasn't sent the report yet. When you get the report, of course, it's not perfect either. When you’re finally home, you’re already bracing for the presentation tomorrow.

You see where I'm going with this?

Today wasn’t perfect, and tomorrow seems like it might not be either.

We're too hard on ourselves. Whatever perfect is, we are not it. It is there somewhere but today is not it.

Why is a perfect day always eluding you? It’s because we think of “perfect” as a fixed notion. In reality, it's a moving target. No matter how bad you try to catch it, it's always running ahead of you.

When will you catch it? When will life be perfect?

To help us "get" to "perfect", Thomas Turner in The Practicing Mind offers a grounding story of the flower's journey:

At what point is a flower perfect?

Is it when it is nothing more than a seed in your hand waiting to be planted? All that it will ever be is there in that moment.

Is it when it first starts to germinate unseen under several inches of the soil? This is when it displays the first visible signs of the miracle we call creation.

How about when it first pokes its head through the surface and sees the face of the sun for the first time? All of its energies have gone into reaching for this source of life; until this point, it has had nothing more than an inner voice telling it which way to grow to find it.

What about when it begins to flower? This is when its own individual properties start to be seen. The shape of the leaves, the number of blooms are all unique to just this one flower, even among the other flowers of the same species.

Or is it the stage of full bloom, the crescendo of all of the energy and effort it took to reach this point in its life?

Let’s not forget that humble and quiet ending when it returns to the soil from where it came.

At what point is the flower perfect?

—The Practicing Mind

I hope you already know that the flower is always perfect. From seed to a small bud to full bloom to its petals shedding, it's exactly where it's meant to be.

Do you think that a flower seed sits in the ground and says…When do I get to bloom? That's when I'll be happy, that's when everybody will be impressed with me.

I hope I'm an orchid and not some wild flower nobody notices. Orchids have it all...no wait; I want to be an oak tree. They are bigger than anybody else in the forest and live longer too”?

As silly as this may sound, this is exactly what we do, and we do it, as they say, every day and in every way.

—The Practicing Mind

Nature teaches us this profound lesson—You are exactly where you’re meant to be.

Even when you’re stuck in traffic, running late, or making mistakes, each moment is unfolding perfectly. It’s not about avoiding flaws. It’s about embracing them.

Perfection isn’t something in the future, “I’ll be happy when I get that raise, buy a house, or accomplish more.”

Instead, it’s here in the present, in the flaws and the beauty alike.

Just like the flower, life’s growth, setbacks, and blooms are perfect in themselves.

The key to true happiness lies in being fully present, and letting go of regrets about the past and anxieties about the future. Only when we soak in the moment can we realize how perfect it truly is, just as it is.

Like that flower, let yourself be. You are perfect. Life is perfect. Right here, right now.