I came to an oddly comforting realization the other night:

Everyone is messed up. Everyone.

One of the silver linings in my recent life change has been the opportunity to reconnect with old friends and develop new ones. I've spent time with people I haven't seen in years, and the number of people in my 'friend pool' in increasing instead of decreasing.

I love it. It's great. I wish I had had the presence of mind to do this years ago. I'm going for coffee, chatting online, doing lots of laughing in lots of different places with lots of different people. I have as many nights out as I could wish and I even have to turn away offers (I'm so popular).

And as a side effect of all this, I'm really talking to people. And what do I find? Everyone's got issues.

Without naming names, here's just a top-of-my-head list: depression, emotional detachment, fear of commitment, alcoholism, impulse control, abandonment issues, rage issues, authority issues, sexual issues, bitterness, self loathing, denial, inability to focus, paranoia, forgetfulness, bipolar disorder, eating disorder, gender disorder. And that's without even really digging for more.

I'm not saying these people are insane. These are real people with real problems and most of them are working hard at fixing them or learning to live with them. The degrees are different of course; some problems are tougher or more serious, and some people's lives are certainly more affected by their problems than others. But it's everyone. Everything has something wrong.

I find that oddly liberating.

Okay, I know I have problems. Self-motivation is one. An inability to deal with rapid changes. I have a big tendacy to let problems slide in the hope they take care of themselves. I have some self-esteem issues that are far better than they once were, and a rather large weakness for salty carbohydrates and baked goods. But I'm working on them. Most things I will never truly cure -- occasionally if I tear a nail and try to trim the sharp edge with my teeth, my chronic onychophagia flares up and I bite the whole nail down until it bleeds. My right index finger is like that right now, and the urge to chew away at it will not subside until I can resist long enough for it to regrow to normal length. Then I should be okay for a while.

The fact that everyone has issues, though, is comforting. I had a big shock when the couple that I swore had the perfect marriage turned out to be working on getting divorced. And again when I found that this practical and levelheaded woman is that way because she has trust issues and has difficulty allowing anyone to help her, thus needing to be solid by herself.

There is a standard of perfection that everyone strives for and despairs of ever reaching. The whole world wishes that they were smarter, more focused, more able to make friends and connect to people, to stop being afraid. Everyone wants to be healthier and happier and hopes that if they just...fix...this...one...thing, that everything will be okay.

But it is okay.

I'm not saying that anyone should stop trying to fix things. It is important to look at what your issues are and find out what can be done about them. Some things can be fixed and those that can't must be somehow accommodated or accounted for. But you will never reach the point where everything is fixed and you can throw yours hands up and say, "All better!"

I used to hate doing laundry. Every week I felt like, "Damn! I just WASHED all these!" In my mind, doing laundry was a solution. A goal, an achievement. The clothes were dirty I so cleaned them. I have done the laundry. And then next week, it's all dirty again and my accomplishment was gone. It wasn't so much that the task was onerous, just the fact that I had done this already.

It's like that DIlbert cartoon where Dilbert has a little cloud following him that zaps people around him with lightning bolts. He dates a woman with no pattern recognition and after it's zapped her a couple of times and is preparing to do it again she says, "Boy! I'm glad THAT will never happen again!"

It became much easier for me as soon as I wrapped my head around the idea that laundry is not a destination. It's a journey. I will never, ever, be done doing laundry. It's an ongoing process that has to be part of my life.

Striving for perfection is good. Despairing of ever reaching it is bad. And the fact that everyone in the whole world is also striving and despairing kinda makes it easier to deal with. This isn't Schadenfreude, I'm not happier because others are suffering. It's just good to know that no one is perfect, and I don't have to feel so bad about being screwed up myself.

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It's Wednesday! Time to talk about a lesson I recently learned that you all probably know anyway. Also this past week at the Pop Blog: A good trailer for the anime film Paprika, and a crappy trailer for the probably-crappy... [Read More]

Tracked on March 7, 2007 10:25 AM