Ann Brasco

Often, our relationships become an unrealized quest for what is perfect, unfettered, and free of flaws. We expect our partners, spouses, and our friends to avoid missteps and to be magical mind readers. These secret expectations play a sinister part in many of the great tragedies of our lives: failed marriages, dissipated dreams, abandoned careers, outcast family, deserted children, and discarded friendships.We readily forget what we once knew as children: our flaws are not only natural but integral to our beings. They are interwoven into our soul__ DNA and yet we continually reject the crooked, wrinkled, mushy parts of our life rather than embrace them as the very essence of our beings.I once believed that aiming for perfection would land me in the realm of excellence. This, however, may not be the trajectory of how things happen. In fact, the pursuit of perfection may be the biggest obstacle to becoming whole.It seems essential to value hard work and determination and yet recognize that the road to excellence is littered with mistakes and subsequent lessons. Imperfection and excellence are intertwined. There is joy in our pain, strength in weakness, courage in compassion, and power in forgiveness.

It seems to make little sense how a person's self-worth or self-confidence should be wrapped up in how much their jacket is worth or what shoe they are wearing. Does a person's round or pointy-tip shoe really say anything of value about who a person is?It seems that true luxury lies in a freedom from needing that red-bottom shoe, that handbag with all the tiny initials and big price tag, or the latest trend to know that a person truly matters. True luxury seems to lie in the separation of confidence and materialism.Authentic luxury flourishes from the untying of self-worth from popular opinion.

Rather than idolizing perfection, we must choose to cherish what is real. To truly live is to love deeply, to get messy, to sometimes get hurt, and to stumble and fall. It is worth it. The alternative of living a life barren of these things in the pursuit of perfection would be tragically uninteresting.

Meditation, practiced individually and as a family, helps with a different type of peace. It is not a calm absent of noise and confusion but a calm that persists in the very center of the noise and the chaos. Ten minutes daily can transform your life.

While many of us admire nice things, materialism and suffering may share a connection. When we place a great deal of our happiness in material things, we run the great risk of losing our happiness when our material things become lost, old, or damaged. Toys break. Cars get dents. Clothes get ripped. Jewels get lost or stolen. Riches come and go.If we collect moments rather than things, these are ours to keep. If we redefine wealth by the amount of love and kindness we afford ourselves to give to others, we can transform our lives.

The alternative to pain may be worse. When you live with an open heart, you will inevitably get hurt. The alternative of living a life closed off from experience, however, is barren. Ironically, it also still involves suffering. In fearing pain, we already feel the pain from our fear.

As a young wife and mother living in a pre-Pinterest world, I used to glue-gun bows and small pieces of minutia together methodically. I was an insomniac proudly penning thank you notes longer than the Declaration of Independence to every person who had even sent me a card. I was reorganizing my linen closet, ironing placemats, straight-ironing my hair, and never saying no to any person that asked me for a favor. And, I forgot to mention, I didn__ really like myself.I felt like a fuzzy, carbon copy of myself. I felt the passion, the conviction, and the grit somewhere inside of me yet a bunch of preconceived ideas somehow got in the way.

We live in a country where you can electively have your nose broken to reshape it, inject fat from your butt into your face to look younger, but pushing a baby out of your own vagina can be restricted.

Until we accept that our children have much more of a risk of being sexually abused than drowning in a pool, being struck by a car, stricken with cancer, hurt by a vaccination, or diagnosed with ebola, we contribute to a culture of panic and ignorance.