From Scratch: day 28

For many many many years in my life I thought I had to be perfect. I know it sounds like a job interview where I list as one of my bad qualities the fact that I am a perfecctionist. I am not — just in case you're wondering. I much rather do something good than perfect because bottomline is, I prefer starting as it is then don't starting at all.

As I began to adult, especially with super busy days going, I realized I couldn't aim only for perfect. I would have to understand that perfection most of the times just slows things down. Or never get them done.

Recently, I felt that way in relation to my English. I thought my English had to be as perfect as a native speaker. But after coming to live in Canada, I understood that speaking a second language fluently is much more than many people do. Have you seen foreigners speaking Portuguese? They always have an accent. So why should I expect my English to be perfect?

Moving to another country can obviously be super challenging. But the one thing that I was certain about was my English. I thought I had a good speaking English level and for that reason I wouldn’t struggle at all. Moving to Toronto made me realize that although the city is multicultural — which means lots of different accents — my English was far from perfect and I had a super strong accent.

This initially frustrated me because I failed my expectations. Now I realize that this is not a problem at all. My accent is part of who I am and my English doesn't have to be perfect to be good. Because perfect is utopic. I am fluent, but I still have my identity.

It’s the same logic as if we were expecting babies to be born speaking fluently 2 languages. Even starting to talk is a process.

Everything is a freaking process, but we have the bad tendency to only consider it a victory if we succeed. But even our definition of success needs to be redefined.

Even after realizing all of this, I still can’t live by my own frustration. This is also a process.