Making Perfect

Practice, practice, practice. Keep at it. Work that muscle. Hone that talent. Make that time for (insert self care activity here). Be more (insert virtue here) today than you were yesterday. Practice is the journey. Practice is what it’s all about, Charlie Brown.

Only sometimes, I don’t want to practice. Sometimes, I let myself coast on surplus effort and trust that all will stay well. And it does … for a while. Then life starts to slide a bit. Things get confusing. I lose my edge. Humdrum replaces extraordinary. I fall into a routine that leaves me tired, frustrated, and creatively unfulfilled. It’s happened, I think. The Universe has stepped back and left me in my own incapable hands.

Uh oh.

There was a time when I would have berated myself for losing favour with the Almighty. These days, I recognize that all I’ve done is get lazy. A dedicated shift in attitude gets me back on track, and in keeping with that shift, I resume my practice of living consciously. Progress resumes.

Ter recently lamented a pause in her practice that she felt had gone too long. She’s a lot harder on herself than I am on me; where I believe I pick up where I left off, she fears she’s lost ground and must make it up before she sees further progress. It doesn’t deter her from trying; she just thinks it should take longer to see a difference—and here’s the cool thing: it doesn’t take nearly as long as she expects. In fact, it’s almost instantaneous.

So, how is it that relaxing your practice enables a short cruise on auto-pilot before you start descending, but an abrupt resumption of a delayed practice gleans an immediate result? Could it be that we lose no ground at all? Better still, is it possible that a brief pause in practice is actually good for us? How else do we assimilate what we’ve learned or experienced as a result of that practice? You rest your body for a day between workouts. You stop reading that textbook to let your mind mull over the last chapter. You take a vacation to de-stress from the office. Why shouldn’t we occasionally let our spirits take a break from working with the Universe? After all, we’re also here to be human. Rising above ourselves is a noble pursuit, but in reality, I think it defeats the purpose.

My point? It’s okay to skip a workout once in a while. It’s okay to take a mental health day, and it’s okay to step back from the Universe now and again. We need those blank spaces to hear the music in the notes. Rest assured, your muscle memory will kick in at the gym. The papers left on your desk will still be there when you come back, and so will the Universe. In fact, the Universe is more grateful than the gym or the office for your return—and don’t we all feel better after a little break?

With love,