{"id":32688,"date":"2013-06-18T21:08:23","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T21:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=32688"},"modified":"2013-06-18T21:15:20","modified_gmt":"2013-06-18T21:15:20","slug":"in-pursuit-of-perfection-a-humbling-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/in-pursuit-of-perfection-a-humbling-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"In Pursuit of Perfection: A Humbling Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"perfection\"<\/a>When I was fourteen I decided that I was going to become perfect. Yeah, I hear how it sounds now, but at the time, it seemed like a brilliant idea. See, one of my sisters\u2019 greatest pleasure during childhood was to constantly tell me everything I was doing wrong. (In adulthood, it\u2019s only her second or third greatest pleasure.)<\/p>\n

I usually tried to defend myself, but one day I realized that she had a point. There were a lot of things about me that needed changing, so I decided to just do it, right then and there. Stop all my bad habits, incorporate the positive character traits I was lacking, and in a matter of no time, there\u2019d be nothing left for her to complain about.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, after a few days of attempted perfection, I saw that nothing about me had actually changed. I was still chewing my breakfast cereal like a cow and hadn\u2019t been able to stop myself from balling up her clothes and throwing them on the floor after I\u2019d worn them. And I\u2019m sorry to say that I was still leaving my daily glob of toothpaste in the bathroom sink.<\/p>\n

Trying to become perfect, it seemed, was a lot easier in theory than in practice. So instead of trying to become perfect all in one fell swoop, I committed to working everyday to get just a little bit better. Some days I\u2019d have great success, other days there\u2019d be huge failures, and probably many days there\u2019d be very little movement at all. But at least I\u2019d be on a path, headed in the right direction, making my way towards the goal as quickly as I could.<\/p>\n

And I told myself that if I was ever feeling down about how much I had accomplished, I would just look back at all the obstacles I\u2019d already overcome to be reminded what I was capable of. But if those achievements ever caused me to feel arrogant, I would simply look forward so I\u2019d remember how much there still was to achieve.<\/p>\n

Years later, after I became observant, I found out that one of the famous yeshivas in pre-World War II Europe encouraged a very similar practice among their students. In order to achieve the appropriate balance between humility and confidence the students were instructed to keep a Torah phrase in each of their pockets.<\/p>\n

If they were feeling disappointed with how they were fairing in life, they\u2019d look to the pocket that said \u201cBishvili kol ha\u2019olam nivra,\u201d which means \u201cthe entire universe was created just for me.\u201d If they were feeling too haughty about their accomplishments, they\u2019d look to the pocket that read, \u201cAni afer v\u2019efer,\u201d meaning \u201cI\u2019m nothing but ashes and dirt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Achieving humility is a very important goal in Judaism, but it can\u2019t come at the expense of a healthy sense of self. It\u2019s a hard balance to achieve, but don\u2019t fret, practice makes perfect.<\/p>\n

Allison Josephs<\/b>\u00a0is the founder and director of\u00a0JewintheCity.com<\/a>\u00a0which breaks down stereotypes about Orthodox Jews and offers and humorous, meaningful look into Orthodox Judaism through the power of new media.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The reality of the situation is that none of us can ever truly be perfect. The best we can do is try to be the best we can be and learn from our mistakes in the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":790,"featured_media":32691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\nIn Pursuit of Perfection: A Humbling Experience - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/in-pursuit-of-perfection-a-humbling-experience\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In Pursuit of Perfection: A Humbling Experience - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The reality of the situation is that none of us can ever truly be perfect. 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