If you are reading this it may be because you received my Christmas card and wanted to know the story behind it.
It all started a week or so ago in class. I laughed and told my students about one of my favourite jokes. I told him that those people who understood it thought it VERY funny, those who didn't....just didn't get it at all. The funniest part to me is how often it's repeated. The joke is: "Nobody's perfect."
This joke has been told so often that people have forgotten the joke and thought it was true. My students were a little confounded..."Isn't it true?" their puzzled faces asked silently. "What's so funny about that?" their voices uttered.
At this I drew a big circle on the white board. "This circle represents how people truly are..." I told them. "...a perfect and complete circle. Unfortunately, because they only pay attention to the most superficial part of themselves, they don't see the perfection deep inside them, just waiting to be found." I drew a black mark in the circle. "This is how most people see themselves. They think they have a empty hole inside...I call it a void, which they try to fill. They fill the void in the widest variety of ways. I, for example, talk and talk and talk, some people are very, very quiet. Some people work, work, work, while they are working they can forget about the void. Some people are "lazy" and fill the void by doing nothing and acting like that makes them happy. Some people, particularly children but not only, fidget and act goofy in class." They chuckled thinking of one of their classmates.
"Some people become sports maniacs, others turn to drugs and alcohol. Some people, including me for forty years, chew their fingernails--I don't do that very much anymore."
"Why not?" they asked.
"I don't know, I just stopped. I just didn't feel the need to put my fingers in my mouth any more..."
"Ugggh!" they moaned at the thought.
"Some people turn to things that have positive consequences, like studying their brains out, others to things that have negative consequences, like drinking and drugs. And if only, they looked deep within themselves, past the little physical imperfections and the little personality quirks...they would see their true perfect selves and they could do what they want in peace rather than trying to fill a void that isn't really there."
One of my students understood the joke and that evening or the following day he sent me the Christmas card I've shared with you.
Why do people refuse to see the perfection within themselves. My best guess is that they're afraid of it. They're afraid it'll change them and something will be expected of them. And yet, perfection is already perfect and complete. It requires nothing and expects nothing. All you have to do is find it within yourself and let it emerge as it surely will. And you don't even have to do that!!! You can go on through life trying to fill the inexistent void--it'll be there waiting for you if and when you're ready.
Take your time, but know it's there!
Post Scriptum:
Now YOU know the joke. I hope this post makes you smile every time (and there will be many) you hear someone say, "Nobody's perfect!" Above all, I hope that in the smiling you will see a little further within and know that "Everybody's perfect!" Starting with YOU!!
