Imperfectly Perfect

When I turned 40, I realized I had spent most of the previous decade in the dogged pursuit of trying to have a child—despite it all—the grief, tragedy, and anxieties of the path of the uncertain. Finally, after our son was born, it was bliss, until health woes of the 40s hit a few years later. So, the 40s kicked off both a precious journey through motherhood and a veritable metaphysical angst, not unlike for a lot of us women—a roaring urgency to make up lost time and be well, amidst the screeching realization that life was finite. The burning question then became: what’s meaningful in life? If we have but one life to live, what’s in and what’s out, going ahead?

I was done muddling through life without intention—every decision came to be carefully evaluated under the watchful eye of meaningfulness. The first thing out the window was my full-time job to make more room for being mom and exploring this wondrous world and learning together with my miracle child—the yelling, sprouting vigorous gray hair (and losing some black strands), and the unglamorous side of motherhood included. I had commuted 3+ hours a day for 18 years and no way could I afford to sell my soul 10 hours a day to an external job—however wonderful—every single day.

But I had to remain a contributing and an independent woman. Consulting it was.

What better job could I have than doing what I love most, plus get paid for it?
Become a writer, check! Being a Senior Writer for the World Bank covering meaningful issues on development and poverty across continents was icing on the cake.

Travel and see the world—I have always believed that the world was a small place and that we are more alike than different. Exploring new cultures, meeting new people, and elevating unknown voices always fortified the core belief that there is indeed a common thread of humanity that bonds us as humans—and tapping into these connections was precious, as they are geared to make us more accepting of others.

Dedicate more time to personal writing was in, in spurts though, till now—finally.

I was also looking for a particular spiritual backdrop to both enhance the wisdom life has to offer and have a fall back during turbulent times. You see, I grew up at the epicenter of many religions in India—I was born Hindu, but religion was not rigorously enforced in our family, and I grew up in a Zoroastrian neighborhood attending a Zoroastrian school and later learning French literature, my major at the time, from Catholic and Zoroastrian teachers and French natives.  

Vedanta, the ancient Hindu philosophy, came into my life, ironically, ten thousand miles away from my native India in the whereabouts of Washington, DC. The Mind is like a river, I heard in my first Vedanta discourse—it requires quantity control of our thoughts with Karma yoga or work; quality control of our thoughts with Bhakti yoga or spirituality; and direction control of our thoughts with Gyana yoga or the pursuit of knowledge. “If we are not our thoughts produced by the mind, then what are we?” I asked the spiritual leader of the Center. He answered with a smile, “That’s precisely what we have to discover through our spiritual journey.” I was hooked. The appeal of this philosophy to the intellect—not forcing you into believing something but arriving at compassionate conclusions and solutions to life with almost scientific precision; the importance it gave to the training of the mind; the call of the philosophy to turn inward for wisdom from our own humble, yet powerful Self shook my universe, and stuck.

So, here I am. I am an imperfect soul trying to intentionally perfect—imperfectly—the course of life to make it more enjoyable, worthwhile, and meaningful. Along the way, I have accumulated some tools of the trade so to speak, that I’d love to share with you. A steadfast companion on this journey has been my Self, an infinite pool of wisdom that keeps giving. Consider it our inner wise guide that sees us through life’s toughest moments, helping us find contentment in those moments even as one doubts.

This is it—this is our journey of peaks and valleys, and the only thing that’s a constant is our effort at making it perfect and how we go about our effort. In that sense, it is the journey and not the destination that counts, but the effort you put into perfecting the journey leads you to a more meaningful destination, a place of honest happiness. Seen through this lens, life is about arriving at these little moments of realizations, of happiness—a marriage of our own potential and capabilities and the diversity and beauty the world has to offer, however imperfectly prefect the outcome. So, let’s muddle along together with intention, my friends…

And, do you agree—that life’s imperfectly perfect? Or, do you see it as perfectly imperfect? Do share your thoughts.

Meaningfully yours,
Anu