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The Imperfect Perfectionist // Ian Blair

Ok, I get a bit personal in this blog post, so I hope my point comes across accurately. Hope y'all like the change in approach for this one.

Book I of “Dark Night of the Soul” seeks to address each of the deadly vices/sins in various entries, each continuing Saint John’s thought process forward through detailing a sort of purging of the evils within someone’s soul through intense prayer and spiritual practice. The entry that stood out the most to me in particular has to be Chapter V, in which Saint John details the pitfalls and spiritual shortcomings associated with the wrathful and sullen. Being a creative person while having a perfectionist side often highlights two aspects of my personality that I am not exactly proud of: my impatience and my pride. Saint John eloquently articulates the typical thought process of a wrathful person in entry three: 

“There are others who are vexed with themselves when they observe their own imperfectness, and display an impatience that is not humility . . . Many of these persons purpose to accomplish a great deal and make grand resolutions; yet, as they are not humble and have no misgivings about themselves, the more resolutions they make, the greater is there fall and the greater is their annoyance, since they have not the patience to wait for that which God will give them when it pleases Him . . .” (John, 14). 

This entire passage calls me out on a level I didn’t expect to be called out on today, but I think the first step to resolving a problem is admitting that you have one. From there, it’s all about holding ourselves accountable whenever we experience the impulse to act upon those problematic character traits. There are certain seasons of life where we are called to look inward and really question the kind of person we are becoming, and, to take a page out of Uncle Iroh’s book, what is it exactly that we are aspiring toward as an end-goal.


I commented on Hailey Morgan's and Lily's posts.

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