By Eva Vega
Today, I sat with a coaching client who named something I know well: the heavy burden of perfect.
The way it creeps into our decisions, shapes our expectations, and sometimes paralyzes our ability to move forward unless everything is just right. We talked about how imperfect circumstances can feel like impossible ones — especially for those of us taught that excellence is the only ticket to safety, belonging, or even survival.
Perfection, in many ways, is a trauma response. It whispers, “If you can just get it right, they can’t touch you.”
But the truth is, perfection doesn’t exist.
And more often than not, chasing it takes us farther from freedom.
Some weeks ago, a tornado touched down in St. Louis. It left destruction in its wake. Entire neighborhoods changed overnight. And yet, in those same neighborhoods, people showed up for one another. Food was shared. Hands cleared debris. Tears were met with presence.
This is what we do when the illusion of control falls apart.
We tap into our ingenuity, our creativity, our audacity to imagine something beyond the rubble.
Philosopher Bayo Akomolafe writes about fugitivity — the act of slipping away from fixed identities and the scripted responses of dominant culture. He reminds us that sometimes the most radical thing we can do is refuse the urgency of perfection and instead, sit with the mess, with the unknown, and trust that something else wants to emerge. That fugitive thinking, that refusal to follow the “right” way, is often where possibility begins.
Imperfect circumstances will find us. Whether through personal grief, professional obstacles, or natural disasters. But each time, we are offered a chance to respond differently — not from a need to perform, but from a place of truth.
This is not about giving ourselves permission.
This is about championing our ability to recreate cultural norms that tell us perfect is the standard and mess is a deviation.
What if the mess is the birthplace of genius?
What if what we’ve been taught to hide or fix is actually the raw material for something entirely new?
There is a kind of freedom that grows when we stop waiting for ideal conditions and start rooting into what is.
When we allow ourselves to be fully human and meet complexity with curiosity.
Freedom lives in the questions we dare to ask:
• What is still possible, even when everything feels uncertain?
• What if doing this imperfectly is exactly the right way to begin?
• What new way of being wants to emerge from this?
Imperfect doesn’t mean unworthy.
Imperfect means alive.
And where there is life, there is movement.
And where there is movement, there is possibility.
Let this be a word of encouragement to anyone holding their breath until the conditions are just right:
Exhale.
Begin.
And trust that something beautiful is already rising.
