Imperfection Is Beautiful
You were born to be unique with an original gift, so why don’t you shine your uniqueness on the world to capitalize on your originality? As long as you want to be perfect, nobody will be attracted to you since perfection is boring. And most importantly, having flaws, defects, faults, and weakness makes you more attracted and interested. Why? This is because these precise things make us human beings. If you don’t have any flaws, defects, faults, and weaknesses, you are not a human being; you are a goddamn robot. Who will be attracted to a robot that always gives you perfect answers and behaves perfectly with an unemotional trait? Nobody will be attracted to you unless you have your uniqueness, human flaws, and sparkling emotions and passions.
Why do you voluntarily try to be the same as everyone else to kill your uniqueness? Why don’t you become who you truly are and bring your uniqueness to light all the time to enjoy your life to the fullest? Because you want to be perfect for society’s eyes? Because you are afraid of other people’s opinions if you bring your uniqueness to light? If so, you are unwittingly heading in the wrong direction: you are voluntarily liquidating your own uniqueness, day by day. You are liquidating only one thing that makes you special and beautiful. If you coerce yourself to be the same as everyone else to pretend to be perfect, it will make you less attractive and colorless. This is because pretending to be the same as everyone else is a distortion of nature and goes against God’s law, for in all the world’s woods and forests, He did not create a single leaf the same as another.
In addition, I wrote the trilogy Song of Friendship, which celebrates one’s uniqueness and imperfection. These books depict how stopping to pretend to be the same as everyone else makes you free from a monotonous prison, how showing your uniqueness to the world every single day makes you feel happy and alive, how embracing your uniqueness wholeheartedly makes you look more human, and how marching on your own unique destiny relentlessly makes you more attractive and beautiful.
As a result, you had better start celebrating having the courage to be different instead of trying to be the same as everyone else to be perfect. You had better embrace your imperfection wholeheartedly and enjoy becoming who you truly are all the time: A totally unique individual with a heart. And that will make you shine radiantly like a distant star.
Celebrate Your Uniqueness
You should celebrate your uniqueness each morning by showering your true color on the world. You were born to be unique with an original gift, and it is your obligation to improve your original gift and cultivate your uniqueness daily. As a matter of fact, if you don’t embrace your uniqueness wholeheartedly and start walking on your private destiny relentlessly, your life will be a humdrum continuation without any adventures. You had better realize that you will be shined luminously once you have started becoming who you truly are all the time and bring your uniqueness to light boldly.
Moreover, you should not pretend to be everyone else because it will annihilate your uniqueness eventually. You are so unique and no single human being in the world looks like you completely. No human being can match your uniqueness and bequeathed gift, for you are an original being. In short, you should take advantage of your uniqueness, show the world what an awesome human being you are, and embrace your uniqueness wholeheartedly.
If you don’t know how you can grasp your uniqueness and original gift, I will give you a clue on how to fathom your uniqueness and original gift. You should try to find what your inner voice tells you, try to find what you want to do for the rest of your life, and try to believe in your unique personality. Then, you will start to comprehend what your heart desires most, your special gift, and how powerful you are once you have accepted who you truly are.
I absolutely believe that we have only one obligation to fulfill: We should realize who we truly are. Every single person has their own uniqueness, so one should discover one’s own unique being and respect their individuality. And I believe that every school should teach students how to improve their unique personalities and gifts. I think that education is not just remembering and memorizing. Education means understanding the subject. One should understand a subject and should have his or her own opinions as well. The education system should cultivate students’ uniqueness, encourage their unique ability, and support recognizing their unique potency at maximum. Most importantly, teach students how to celebrate their uniqueness so that they will know that becoming who you truly are all the time is not a crime but a sheer gift.
Accordingly, I wrote Dance to Dreams: Making the Right Choice, which depicts people who have the courage to be different to walk on their own unique paths with joy and how embracing their imperfections by celebrating their uniqueness changes their miserable existences to happy existences: Having escaped from the suffocating grip of Japanese culture to pursue his dreams of being a writer, author and Japanese ex-pat Shogo Onoe continues his story in this thought-provoking autobiographical novel, recounting the rich culture and amazing people that he befriended beyond the confines of his native homeland.
In addition, if you desire to achieve something essential for your life and understand the reason for your existence on this earth, you must judge for yourself and must be true to yourself all the time. You do not need someone else to lead you to your private destiny, for you must become your own leader and must lead yourself to your private destiny. As soon as you follow someone else and start imitating someone else, you cease to be true to yourself; you reject yourself, which is the worst sin in God’s eyes. The most essential thing for you to do in this life is to be true to yourself unconditionally. Here are enlightening passages from Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse:
The Buddha’s eyes were lowered; his unfathomable face expressed complete equanimity.
“I hope you are not mistaken in your reasoning,” said the Illustrious One slowly. “May you reach your goal! But tell me, have you seen my gathering of holy men, my many brothers who have sworn allegiance to the teaching? Do you think, O Samana from afar, that it would be better for all these to relinquish the teachings and to return to the life of the world and desire?”
“That thought never occurred to me,” cried Siddhartha. “May they all follow the teachings! May they reach their goal! It is not for me to judge another life. I must judge for myself. I must choose and reject. We Samanas seek release from the Self, O Illustrious One. If I were one of your followers, I fear that it would only be on the surface, that I would deceive myself that I was at peace and had attained salvation, while in truth the Self would continue to live and grow, for it would have been transformed into your teachings, into my allegiance and love for you and for the community of the monks.”
Half smiling, with imperturbable brightness and friendliness, the Buddha looked steadily at the stranger and dismissed him with a hardly visible gesture.
“You are clever, O Samana,” said the Illustrious One, “you know how to speak cleverly, my friend. Be on your guard against too much cleverness.”
The Buddha walked away and his look and half smile remained imprinted on Siddhartha’s memory forever.
I have never seen a man look and smile, sit and walk like that, he thought. I, also, would like to look and smile, sit and walk like that, so free, so worthy, so restrained, so candid, so childlike and mysterious. A man only looks and walks like that when he has conquered his Self. I also will conquer my Self.
I have seen one man, one man only, thought Siddhartha, before whom I must lower my eyes. I will never lower my eyes before any other man. No other teachings will attract me since this man’s teachings have not done so.
The Buddha has robbed me, thought Siddhartha. He has robbed me, yet he has given me something of greater value. He has robbed me of my friend, who believed in me and now believes in him; he was my shadow and is now Gotama’s shadow. But he has given to me Siddhartha, myself.
Lastly, I would like you to celebrate only one person today, a lone individual who is utterly unique, has the courage to be different by embracing his or her imperfection and enjoys improving their uniqueness to shower their original gift on the world daily. I would like you to celebrate only one being because they are unique and have nothing in common with anyone else: You. This morning, I invite you to sing a song of celebration for who you are. I hope you will triumphantly keep celebrating your uniqueness and individuality every coming bright new day.
