We are all very fond of a word called ‘Perfection’. But can there be anything perfect? Can there be anybody perfect? No, there can not be anything, and there can not be anybody like that. The word ‘Perfection’ is a misnomer. This is where I am bringing in the ‘Paradox of Perfection’ principle.
As per the Paradox of Perfection, we are continuously evolving, we are continuously updating, we are continuously upgrading, we are continuously improving, we are continuously moving from one better state to another better state, and the so-called ‘the best’ is always far ahead and is never going to be reached. This is where competing with oneself can be meaningful. Therefore, competing with somebody can result in a neurosis, and competing with oneself can result in blissfulness. So, competing with yourself means creating yourself, creating your own self, discovering your own self, and being more than what you were. Every moment you create a new you. And this new you will have only versions. And these versions can go from zero to infinity. And that YOU means Your Own Uniqueness.
Mathematically, the gap between ‘What I am’ and ‘What can I be’ is never-ending. This delta can be as big as infinity. This gap analysis
Your equation is here: {Δ=(B2-B1)} I call being ‘Better’. We should never forget that the ‘Better’ exists before the ‘Best’. And there is nothing called the ‘Best’. It’s always getting better and better. Can you see the beauty? This principle can be applied to virtually anything: people, products, processes, promotions, productivity, performance, and profits. Our whole endeavor is to bridge the gap between ‘What is’ and ‘What can be’. And this gap, this delta, I call the ‘Paradox of Perfection’. They say that the distance between you and the horizon is always constant. Similarly, the distance between ‘What I am’ and ‘What can I be’ is never going to be equal to zero. And this makes our learning a never-ending phenomenon. I strongly believe that we as individual human beings should continuously learn and evolve. There can be an end to knowledge, but there can never be an end to knowing and being. I am not the same person before writing this blog, I am not the same person while writing this blog, and I am not the same person while ending this blog. I am always continuously moving into a new version of myself. In the above formula, B2 can mean a new better state, a new being. And B1 can mean an earlier better state, an old being. And the gap called delta means growth. And eventually, the difference between a Buddhu and the Buddha is that of Enlightenment.
The journey of life has a beginning but without an end. There is no goal and no destination in the journey of life. There are only milestones. And each milestone gives us fresh joy and happiness. And each milestone gives us a new hope and a new aspiration. The river of life is continuously flowing between two banks called birth and death. The death of a body is not an end but only an episode in the infinite journey of life. So we can make the journey of our life our joy and the destination our destiny.
Krishna often uses the words “I” and “Me” in the Bhagavad Gita. I do not think he means the individual I. To me, he is continuously pointing us toward the “Infinite I” and not the “Finite I”. He continuously tells Arjuna to move from the finite I to the infinite I. The biggest question in Eastern Mysticism is “Who am I?”. And to get an answer to this question we have to continuously do the above gap analysis. Wherever we are in our life two paths go away from us - one moving towards the negative infinity and the other towards the positive infinity. And what path we choose is our choice. This is how moving from “What I am” to “What I can be” can be the greatest challenge.
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