“Honestly, I don’t think anyone will notice.” The words left my mouth before I could stop them – as if my mother, trying to plug the gaping hole in our living room wall, would believe me.

It was the morning of my fifteenth birthday. In reality, my plans to celebrate with friends later that evening depended on my mother’s willingness to welcome people into our living room, which itself depended on the success of the concealment work which had to take place first. A few months earlier, my father had the idea to “motivate” him and my mother to finally redo the mantel and fireplace in the living room. His solution had been to completely demolish the old chimney, which he had undertaken one weekend while my mother and I were away for a swimming competition. The result? Instead of forcing a quick renovation as planned, we lived with a gaping hole in our wall for months and my dad received a “what were you thinking” look from the rest of us every time the subject was discussed.

Anyway, we had a lot of people. My friends noticed the missing fireplace, but it was laughed off as a well-intentioned father’s mistake and the conversation quickly continued. I don’t even remember what our living room looked like that night, just the people who came and the fun we had.

The other day I came across a quote that reminded me of that night. This is an excerpt from the song “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen.

“Forget your perfect offer

There’s a crack in everything

This is how the light comes in”

Forget your perfect offer. Of course, the state of our living room at the time may not have met my mother’s definition of a “perfect offering.” Still, if we had let optics stop us from inviting people over, I would have missed out on a great memory of all my high school friends gathered in one place.

I didn’t share my mother’s distress at the time, but as I got older, I understood better where she was coming from. It wasn’t exactly the lack of a fireplace that worried her, but the idea that others might perceive a “weakness” in the spotless, organized home environment she strove to emulate. Although I don’t own a house to host people, it seems that life demands “perfect deals” from me in other forms: getting perfect scores on tests, curating the perfect Instagram feed, keeping up with the daily routine. perfect training, land the perfect internship. Anything less can feel like a failure of myself, a result of my own weaknesses and flaws.

Cohen rejects this idea, and rightly so. I think about the times I struggled to get up to practice in the morning, the times I put together a perfect class schedule just to have all the classes fill up before my registration time, or to the times I rehearsed a presentation and then left… script during the real thing. In all of these cases, how often did everything go well? The answer is: every time. The training has been done, the courses taken, the presentation made. It may not have been perfect, but it was good.

Striving for perfection and allowing yourself to be seriously humbled by reality is a natural part of the growth process. My friend’s father was shockingly honest when he told her that “the point of college is to break you down so that you accept that life is complicated.” He means “messy” in the sense that things will rarely go as planned, and that’s okay. The best way to make God laugh is to tell Him about your plans: what matters is that you accept life as it is, rather than what you wish it were. This doesn’t mean that ambitious goals are useless or that you should lower your standards by any means. It simply protects us from an unrealistic notion of “perfect” that gets in the way of goodness.

But Cohen goes further to say that our “messiness” also produces hidden blessings. Weakness becomes strength and fault becomes virtue. Forgetting your rehearsed answers results in a much more natural and meaningful conversation during a job interview. A wrong detour during your day trip leads you to discover an incredible hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Meeting late allows your team to slow down and bond. Focusing on what’s wrong can blind you to everything that’s happening too, unexpectedly, so well.

Although easier said than done, I wonder what other aspects of my life I can accept the “cracks” in my projects and recognize how they “let the light in.” My worst fear is looking back on life wishing I had done it invited friends to dinner even though the carpet was stainedor that I had I jumped in the pool instead of worrying about getting my hair wet. There’s no point in delaying happiness, delaying progress, or missing out on memories because you’re stuck in an unattainable idea of ​​”perfect.”

My family may have Thanksgiving this year. The chimney-sized hole in our living room has been filled since I was fifteen, but I’m happy that there will probably be more to “hide” before people arrive. . If we intentionally focus on the value of coming together – of being together – we may find that it really isn’t so difficult after all. There is always plenty of light to let in.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.