How many times have you heard the phrase “Practice makes perfect”, and how many times do you believe you have actually attained that perfection? Let me tell you a little story about perfection in my own life.

This story starts about a week ago when I decided I wanted to apply to write Odyssey and was accepted. Wow! I get to write for Odyssey I thought to myself, this is great! I have a long list of things I want to write about, after all, I’m an interesting person, I have tons of stories to share, let's do this. I sit down to start writing and literally don’t know where to start. I want my first article to be amazing, I want it to be perfect. So, I start writing a few articles, trying to create that one amazing story. As I’m writing I think to myself, “none of these articles are good enough” and I start to doubt myself. But then I think, “when is anything I do ever absolutely perfect?” The answer is simple, never. Now that’s not me putting myself down, it's just the truth. No matter what we do in life, no matter how great it is, it will never be 100 percent perfect. Why? Because we’re human and we make mistakes.

And that’s okay.

There is such a pressure to be perfect, in school, athletics, with friends, and even in the activities we are involved with. But where does this pressure come from? Yes, it can come from the people around you, but at least in my case I’m my biggest critic. I worry how people will perceive the things that I do, and want them to see the best side of me. Even when these people could actually care less about the things I do. So in reality I’m competing with myself. Which can be a good thing in the proper context, but can also really bring yourself down.

So how does one get past all this?

It all comes down to knowing who you are. Who we all are, and that is a child of God. Even though we may not be perfect in our actions and words, the one who created us is. So I can take comfort in knowing that at the end of the day I am still a daughter of God. God doesn’t care how great my grades are, what I scored in the game, or how amazing my article is.

Because in the long run it won’t matter how perfect my life was, what matters is getting to Heaven, being a saint. My time here on Earth is a drop in the bucket compared to eternity. Every day I strive to do my best, after all God created me for greatness. But if I fall (and I do), I know that God still loves me, and tomorrow is a new day.

Think of the things in your life that you are waiting to do because you don’t think you’re ready yet. Now go out and do those things! Live your dream, because if you keep waiting for perfection, you’re going to be waiting a long time. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake, because if you do, you can learn from it, and move on.

Now if there’s one thing you can be perfect at, its being perfectly imperfect.

Go out and do something amazing.