We're perfect

What is it with women and being obsessed with perfection? We want to be beautiful and thin with voluminous hair, groomed eyebrows, flawless skin, straight teeth and perfect clothes, accessories and shoes . If we're too fat, we obsess about losing weight. If we're too thin, we either think we still need to lose weight or we decide we need a bigger chest or rounder rear. If we manage to make it out of the bathroom with our self esteem intact, we want to have the cleanest house, the hippest decor and the best-behaved children. We want to have exceptional organizational skills and constant composure. We want to do charity work. We want to make homemade bread. We want to write thank-you notes. We want to see the world. We want to develop our talents. We want to give 110 percent. We want to be kinder. We want to have lots of friends and an exciting social calendar. We want to give more than we get. We want to be better in every way. We want to be everything, it seems, except who we are.

But the reality is that we're perfect just because we want to be better on the inside. That makes us beautiful on the outside, even if our house is a mess, our bread is store-bought and our hair looks rather limp. Somehow we don't always realize that and we go back to our quest for perfection. But for those few moments when we realize that we're just perfect the way we are, life is good.