The allure of the perfect self

During a coaching session with a client this week, I realised that so many of us including myself want to arrive at this much improved self and do this at a record-breaking speed whatever that means. The desire for a perfect self is alluring, the self that does no wrong, the self that knows all the answers, the self that has done all the growth and can just rest. We so desperately want to arrive there. But what if we will never “arrive” because there is no destination to be arrived at? What if we will never to get to know and can never grasp that perfect self? And does knowing that this destination is unobtainable make all our continual efforts to improve redundant?

I think there is zen in knowing that all we have is the current moment and everything else is outside of our control. To predict and plan, to want to know all the answers and to have all the skills and mindsets necessary to face the future, are all the ways that we are trying to control the uncontrollable. I am not saying that this is not useful but what I am saying is that there is an extent to which it is useful. At some point, being comfortable with the unknown and knowing that you, I and we are doing our best in the present moment working towards a future that we would like to have is what counts and that is enough.