We Are Imperfectly Perfect (Creative Essay)
- michaelcolonwriter
- Apr 25
- 3 min read

The most complex glass structures are beautiful in many ways. We are like these monuments by design of love, patience, and intricacy. The final product of an artistic sculpture is something to behold and meant to be placed somewhere for many to see. The most awe-inspiring structures made from stone, bronze, or other precious metals are the product of symmetrical beauty, collaborating with a bigger vision for a conceptual idea. But no matter how monumental or perfect a structure may seem, they have a breaking point, just like we do. The cracks and stains don't mean something or someone is ruined. It means, like anything, nothing is perfect, and it is incredible to be imperfectly perfect.
Being imperfectly perfect means our flaws and weaknesses aren't mistakes in our design. The fact that we get scratches and dents means we can polish and fix those blemishes into something new and potentially better. If everyone were indestructible physically and mentally, there would be no room for experiencing growing pains. If there is no room to improve, and everything we do is instant perfection, what is the point of doing anything if the results are always the same? Imagine there were never any changes in the season. There were no summer days, spring flowers, fall festivities and foliage, or winter snowy paradises. Why bother ever going outside? Life is about experiencing different seasons and coming out into a new season with new outlooks and ways to approach things.
We need to remain imperfect because it drives us to want to continue striving for something new. Every discovery made by man and every innovation came from fractured people looking for excellence. The greatest athletes, scientists, and philosophers have many trauma-induced breaks on them, so they become great at what they do. Many of the cracks needed to be repaired outline a story of life. So many of us want to live a life trying to avoid as much pain as possible, but that is very unrealistic. Chasing a life where there is never any risk of breaking is a boring life.
The great pyramids, statues, and other megalithic structures had to go through a filtering process of blood, sweat, and tears before becoming the world's wonders today. In that process of pain and struggle, we can repair the parts of ourselves and do wonders. To appreciate what is broken is to value something for what it is while also seeing the potential of good that can come out of it. For all the parents out there, your kids will make tons of mistakes, but you won't love them any less. You still finished at the top of the class for the honor roll but did so with a ninety-nine and not a perfect score of one hundred. Just because the outcome doesn't go as "perfectly" as we want it to go, it7 doesn't detract from the significance of something or someone.
We hear that nobody is always perfect, which is true, but within that phrase is an undertone of many more lines that need to be filled in. These lines and spaces allow us to write about how amazing we can still be despite the drawbacks. We are a continuous work in progress no matter our age or how far we are from what we want. That alone makes us special. When we look in the mirror, we should not be ashamed because we are born beautiful works of art with cracks. Perfection is the character in a folk tale that listeners can only try to aspire to be. Perfection is a metaphor invented by our minds because, deep down, we don't want there ever to be a limit to what we can do. But imperfection is happening around us every day and is to be embraced as we constantly reinvent ourselves in the present to take bigger strides into the future.
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