Nobody's Perfect

If I had to put it into one sentence, I would say that the purpose of tarot reading is this: To help you find your path in life again, no matter how long it is since you lost your way. 

I always wanted to write a self help book titled Nobody's Perfect. 

So many of us think we've made too many mistakes to ever be happy, that we've squandered our chance at a great life, that because of past actions, we can never deserve to be really content.

Wrong, wrong and, let me think about that last one for a moment... Hmmm, yep, that one's wrong as well.

My favourite movie with a spiritual theme is Groundhog Day. A lot of people scoff when I say that. A lot of people see Groundhog Day as just another hilarious Bill Murray performance in an amusing but impossible set of circumstances. A lot of people are wrong about that.

What if you kept living the same day over and over again with no explanation and no real escape from your issues, no matter how hard you try?

Oh. My. God! That's my life! Well, some days anyhow.

Groundhog Day was first written by Danny Rubin as a way to make the concepts of Buddhism and spiritual growth through reincarnation more accessible to a mainstream audience. When the story begins, Phil is an obnoxious, sexist, self-centred ... well, arsehole. But through some mysterious blessing, he is trapped in a single day, in a town he hates, for eternity, or so it seems, and is forced to repeat that one boring day over and over until he learns it doesn't matter where he lives, who he loves or what he thinks, many of his life's events are out of his hands and the only control he has over anything is how he responds to it.

In the beginning Phil responds to everything in life with contempt and superiority but through his many mistakes, he eventually learns to respond with grace, patience, love and humour. Most of all, he learns humility. To see his journey from puffed up ego-monster whom everyone hates to humble but effective man about town whom everyone loves is both fun and inspiring.

In one of my favourite scenes, Phil explains to Rita that he is A god, not THE god.

We are all imperfect. We are all just trying to find the best path towards our purpose. By the end of Groundhog Day, Phil is still imperfect, of course, but he has been busted out of that awful lonely cycle that we, as humans, can get into, of cowering behind our egos, hiding our wounds and fears. We either try to pretend that we are perfect or we beat ourselves up for our shortfalls - as if somewhere out there, if we just try hard enough, if we just sweat and hate on ourselves enough, if we just worry and obsess enough, we will someday BE PERFECT.

We won't be. We can't be. It is literally impossible on every level of being you can imagine to ever be perfect.

Nobody is perfect. Why can't we get that through our heads? Nobody is perfect! Why do we persist in beating ourselves up when we discover some new imperfection in ourselves?

Why not just acknowledge the latest in our many many imperfections, resolve to try to do better next time and continue our journey, glad to be alive and in the fine company of an entire world full of imperfect beings?


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