Perfect Compassion

A few years ago, I started playing Solitaire on my phone, when I had a few minutes I needed, or wanted, to kill. I'm not that great at it, but it's fun to win. It's fun to see your time and number of moves decrease. It's fun to think you've lost, then discover there's a way to win. A couple of months ago, I was playing and won. I hadn't done anything fancy or different, I didn't think, but a banner came across the game saying, "You played a perfect game!"

Up until that time, I didn't know a banner like that was even possible - if you won without cheating, that was good enough for me, but "perfect?"

It's messed me up ever since. I can't enjoy the game anymore. Now, every time I "screw up," I think, there goes my perfect game. It's totally ruined the joy of the game for me - the message that anything less than perfect, is losing.

I'm a big fan of Oprah's "Super Soul Sunday" series, and have read many of the books by authors she's had featured. She recently featured Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project. I read the book, but I must say, I felt it missed the mark. In my opinion, we don't need any more books telling us how to makeover our lives, we don't need to be told that if we take on four to five big goals a month, and add them to the ones we're already taking on from the previous month(s), that we will be "happy."

I don't think we get "to" happy through perfection, through goals, through addition, through accomplishment, through complicated and involved processes. I agree with the Dalai Lama, "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." In other words, pull your head out. If you want perfection, and you want happiness, practice perfect compassion.