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Barbara Sipos’ “Keeping In Touch” Newsletter June 2006
How To Be Perfect – Just Be Yourself
Journalist and novelist Anna Quindlen says when she was younger and in college, she tried to be
perfect in every possible way – every single day. She diligently studied for every class, promptly
turned in each of her assignments and cheerfully smiled at everyone she
passed in the dorm halls.
In a 1999 commencement address Anna delivered at her alma mater,
Barnard College, she said that being perfect was hard work – and that the
rules had changed. What constituted perfection in 1970 when she started
college (sweaters and pleated skirts) had morphed into her new version
(khakis and turtlenecks) as she found herself striving to be the ideal
intellectual. But eventually, the burden of trying to always be perfect
became too heavy for Anna to bear.
She spoke the following words to the graduating class:
“Trying to be perfect may be inevitable for people who are smart, ambitious, and interested in
the world and in its good opinion. But at one level it’s too hard, and at another, it’s too cheap
and easy. It really requires you to read the Zeitgeist of
wherever and whenever you happen to be, and assume
the masks necessary to be the best of whatever the
Zeitgeist requires. Those details are ever-changing, but
if you’re clever, you can read them and do the imitation
necessary.
“Nothing important, meaningful, beautiful, interesting,
or great ever came out of imitations. The thing that’s
really hard – and amazing at the same time – is giving up
on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming
yourself.”
I
NSIDE
THIS
ISSUE
How Lack Of Sleep Can Affect
Your Child’s Education
How To Remember Names
Yoga Can Help Lower Back Pain
Is Your Teen Driving Safely?
Easy Ways To Save At The
Supermarket
Longer Lives Are Impacting
Retirement
The Can Chocolate Curb
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