What often grates about personal development is the idea that you're supposed to become perfect.
Cut out your flaws, your idle moments, your little pleasures.
And if you can't manage it, you feel judged.
You picture the "enlightened" as having "dissolved their ego" and looking down on everyone.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The wise people I've met usually know their flaws better than anyone.
They're very, very aware of being imperfect.
So much so that they no longer hide, no longer lie to themselves.
Quite the opposite: their flaws opened the way. Imperfection isn't an obstacle, it's the path.
It's by diving into their slip-ups, their addictions, their failures that they find the material to move forward.
I notice it too, at my own modest level.
The day before yesterday, I completely let myself go.
I broke every one of my rules.
I wallowed in comfort and self-indulgence, to the extreme.
It's not the first time, mind you.
But here's what's different from before:
I didn't blame myself for a second.
I didn't try to correct my behavior even once.
I watched myself, as if from the outside, repeating my mantra:
"I'm doing exactly what I should be doing."
The key being: it's the same mantra as when everything's going well!
In other words: I'm no prouder of my good days than I am ashamed of my bad ones.
The Nicolas who does well isn't the real one.
The Nicolas who falters isn't a mistake to be fixed.
It's a continuum.
I need my strength and my compassion as much as my laziness and my anger.
If I ignore the bad, if I dress up failure, if I pretend, I stop moving forward.
So if one day I point to your anger, your greed, your slip-ups, it's not to make you feel guilty.
I have the same ones!
It's just that, with practice, I may have found a few techniques to put them to better use.
To turn them into fuel to move forward.
Which I try to share with you.
No doubt clumsily.
So don't take it the wrong way.