'Take pains; be perfect.'

I have been saying I will write a blog for a while and a number of things have stopped me until now. When I said it again most recently, my boyfriend asked ‘what are you going to blog about?’ That threw me yet again and almost put me off; people have fashion blogs, travel blogs, fitness blogs, even work blogs. What could I blog about?

The answer is, anything I want to. People also say, talk about what you know. Well, I know a lot about Shakespeare. I know about literature and the theatre. I know about myths and legends and history. I know a lot of extremely useless facts. But the thing I can talk about honestly, without fear of somebody more learned correcting me, is life. Or rather, my life. I am a first class expert on that.

So here it is. Disclaimer, there will likely be no rhyme nor reason as to the subject of these posts.

‘What are you going to blog about?’ Anything. I can talk about anything. Why narrow my perspective?

The name of this blog is one of my favourite quotations from Shakespeare. It’s from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the first time the mechanicals meet to discuss their play and hand out roles. As they disperse, Bottom tells them ‘Take pains; be perfect.’

He says it to encourage them to learn their lines, but the sentiment translates way out of that context. Perfection is subjective. One definition is ‘as good as it is possible to be’. In that case, is it not ‘as good as we can possibly be’? Isn’t perfection achieving all we can and being the best of ourselves that we are capable of being?

We all have our own ideas of what is ‘perfect’. The sheer untapped potential in people is astounding, and currently I for one am not living my life ‘as good as it is possible to be.’ I know that. Don’t get me wrong, I love life. To be happy and to be perfect are not the same thing. I believe we need a balance of the two to live the best lives we can.

This doesn’t come without pain either. Hard work, labour, sacrifices, priorities, decisions. But the pain is worth the outcome, if we listen to ourselves.

So, ‘take pains; be perfect.’ Strive. Struggle. Overcome. Win. Love. Live.