Up: [[Accept Reality]] Related: [[Compulsion]] Created: 2022-12-14 > [!Orbit] [[Marion Woodman]] in *Addiction to Perfection* > It is easier to try to be better than you are than to be who you are. (p.61) Woodman’s point is that when you live by your principles, by ideals, you’re not living your own life. Woodman doesn’t want us taking the easy way out and the easy way, she says, is to set a bunch of principles/ideals of how we think we ‘should’ be living. This is what she believes leads to a feeling of unreality in life, a sense of being ungrounded and always seeking a perfection that isn’t there. Rather, she wants us to be who we are — a much more difficult task because it means that we have to do the hard work of knowing who that is and then live with that imperfect reality, warts and all, moment by moment. For me, Woodman’s quote is highly relevant because I find I spend way too much of my time anticipating a brighter future, rather than being here now. And Woodman’s right, for me at least. There’s an unreality that sets in when I start thinking that everything is going to be happening perfectly in some time that is not now. In my case at least, there’s a big need to [[Accept Reality]].