You’ll never be perfect to everybody

You can’t please everyone and you’ll never be perfect to everybody.

If that’s your plan, you’re going to fail. And I really hope it isn’t breaking your heart to hear this.

I hope it liberates you.

I hope it helps you find comfort.

I hope it saves you from a life of harsh internal talk at every disappointing turn of chasing an impossible goal.

Perfection differs so wildly from one person to another that it’d be exhausting strive for perfection in the eyes of just two other people. And that vision might not even be in line with the idea of perfection you have for yourself.

You can’t please everyone and you’ll never be perfect to everybody.

If that’s your plan, you’re going to fail.

And I really hope it isn’t breaking your heart to hear this.

I hope it makes you realize that if you must achieve perfection, then your best bet is to work towards being perfect in your own eyes.

Meaning: you must decide what perfect is.

Personally, I think perfection alone, without any other intention, is dangerous.

I can want something to be perfect, or I can want something to be perfectly comfortable or perfectly honest or perfectly balanced.

In those instances I’m striving for a specific outcome that I can measure.

And I have to set the standard for what perfect is.

General perfection? I don’t know how to get that.

Perfectly me? Now that’s something I know how to work towards.

Yes, “perfectly me” sounds like an annoying Instagram hashtag. I know.

And it’s probably annoying because it’s not very descriptive in isolation.

“Perfectly Naya” is a touch of good food. A bit of sarcasm and shade. A playlist speckled with oldie tunes. Late night phone calls talking people “off the ledge”. Stuff that makes me want to be more of me.

What does it mean to be you?

If you don’t know the answer to that, then you really can’t understand how anyone can be perfectly themselves.

And if you’re hiding behind some version of you that you think people will like, then you definitely don’t have a clue.

What does that mean?

That means: when you have the chance to open up and share your unpopular opinion, you choose not to.

When you disagree with something, you always nod along because it’s easier to just not make waves.

When you love something that people around you dislike, you downplay it or keep it to yourself because, well, they don’t like it.

Maybe you like keeping yourself to yourself. Maybe you don’t want anyone else to know you.

If that’s the case, your behavior makes sense. Keep hiding behind your representative.

Keep playing the role that you think everyone else wants you to play.

Keep your true feelings to yourself.

Keep trying to hide what’s really important to you from everyone else.

Keep believing that no one sees past the facade.

Just because they haven’t burst your bubble, doesn’t mean they don’t know you’re living in a bubble.

They just choose to let you pretend.

Maybe because they can feel that you’re insecure about it, so they don’t bring it up.

Maybe because they’re sensitive to how sensitive you are.

Maybe that’s because they care about you.

And if they see right through you and still care about you, then maybe that person is ready to know the you that you’re too scared to be.

The you that you’ve worked so hard to keep from everyone.

The you that you refuse to be in front of anyone.

The you that hurts because it doesn’t get to come outside and live a real life.

Behind your smile, behind the shoulder you let everyone cry on, behind the person everyone respects, there’s a person who deserves the chance to be an imperfect human.

To be needy and clingy and emotional and flawed and not have it all together all the time.

You might find that some of those people who have been crying on your shoulder would be nothing less than honored to let you cry on theirs.

In fact, forgive them if they’re a bit clumsy about being there for you; they may not have ever expected you to open up like this.

Forgive them if they’re going about this all wrong because they didn’t even know you could ever need help from little ole them (they always come to you, not the other way around).

But do not let that stop you from being your full self.

Or maybe it’s time for you to show everyone that you’re strong and not the damsel that lets people take care of them when they don’t need taking care of.

Maybe your way of showing love is letting people feel like you can’t manage without them because they desperately need to be needed.

It’s not your responsibility to be anyone’s charge.

Or savior.

What happens when they no longer need you to be what you have been to them? Who will you be then?

How will you continue to please people when their needs and wants change without warning?

Wrap your identity up in what everyone else thinks they want and you will lose yourself when they find themselves.

If that hasn’t happened to you already.