The Beauty in Your Broken Pieces 🧩💔💅

Published: Wed, 02/19/25

Updated: Wed, 02/19/25

Our Perfections are What Make Us Perfect.

Anonymous

I’ve always found Japanese culture fascinating and would love to visit one day. But in the meantime, I can appreciate their many philosophies—especially the concept of wabi-sabi, the beauty of imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness. It’s a concept that immediately resonated with me, and since discovering this idea, it has transformed how I see myself and my life.

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There is a kind of beauty in imperfection.

We live in a world obsessed with optimization. Everywhere you turn, someone tells you how to fix your life, perfect your habits, and become your “best self.” You know that I believe in being the best you can be, but I’m also a pragmatist. I’ve embraced the idea that I will never arrive at an ideal version of myself. There is no perfect future for me who has it all together—who never doubts, never fails, never feels lost. And you know what? That’s okay.

🌟 Afrofuturist Fashion Design Challenge: Weave the Future! 🌟

Step into the world of tomorrow and redefine the boundaries of style and tradition with our Afrofuturist Fashion Design Challenge. This contest calls all visionary designers, artists, and dreamers to merge the rich tapestry of traditional African fashions with the possibilities of futuristic materials and technology.

Challenge Details: Design a piece of clothing or a full outfit that reflects the spirit of Afrofuturism. Your creation should honor traditional African design aesthetics while integrating advanced materials, smart fabrics, or technology that could change the way we think about clothing.

How to Enter:

Design Concept: Create a sketch or digital artwork of your fashion design. Your submission can be a detailed drawing, a digital rendering, or even a 3D model.
Description: Accompany your design with a 200-word description explaining the inspiration drawn from African traditions and the futuristic elements you've incorporated.
Materials and Technology: Specify the types of materials and technological enhancements used in your design. For example, self-heating fabrics, LED decorations, or solar-powered accessories.

Judging Criteria:

Creativity and Originality: How innovative and unique is your design?
Integration of Cultural and Futuristic Elements: How well do you blend traditional African aesthetics with futuristic concepts?
Visual Impact: How striking and artistically compelling is your submission?
Explanation Clarity: How well do you communicate the concept and functionality of the design?

Prizes:

🥇 First Place: Your character will be featured in an upcoming story in our newsletter, plus receive a $50 Amazon gift card.
🥈 Second Place: Your character will be featured in our newsletter and receive a $25 Amazon gift card.
🥉 Third Place: Your character will be mentioned in our newsletter and receive a $10 Amazon gift card.

Submit Your Designs: Email your hero's description and any optional sketches to Marksmanstudios1@gmail.com. Please format your entry with your contact details and the title "Afrofuturist Fashion Design Challenge!"

Submission Deadline: Be sure to submit your submissions by 3rd March 2025.

Coming of age, I believed the lie that one day I’d finally “sort my life out.” I’d be more productive, more disciplined, more… everything. I thought happiness would follow if I could fix my flaws. But that day never came. It never will. Because life isn’t about arriving at some perfect version of yourself—it’s about fully embracing the version you already are as you move forward with your life.

This isn’t about giving up on growth. I want to be better—I’m committed to it. But I’m done making self-improvement a punishment. If trying to improve your life feels like a chore, you’re doing it wrong. True self-improvement starts from self-acceptance, not self-rejection.

The Art of Imperfection

The Japanese art of kintsugi captures this beautifully. When a piece of pottery breaks, they don’t throw it away. They repair it with gold, highlighting the cracks rather than hiding them. The broken piece becomes more valuable, not less.

Your life works the same way. Your cracks—struggles, flaws, and failures—are not something to cover up or erase. They are part of your story. They make you unique. They make you you.

Yet, society teaches us to hide those cracks. We’re told to fix everything “wrong” with us—our bodies, minds, and routines. But chasing perfection is like trying to capture the horizon. You never arrive. You only exhaust yourself in the process.

The Illusion of Having It All Together

Nobody has it all together. Nobody. Not your friends. Not your idols. Not the people whose curated lives you envy on social media.

Maya Angelou, one of the greatest writers of our time, admitted to feeling like a fraud every time she started a new book. Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor, wrote daily reminders to stay calm—because he struggled to do so. Even the most disciplined, accomplished people you admire are still human.

The difference isn’t that they’ve eliminated imperfection—it’s that they’ve made peace with it.

The Trap of Fixing Yourself

We think we need to “fix” ourselves to live a good life. But here’s the trap: the more you chase perfection, the more it escapes you. The finish line keeps moving. There’s always something new to optimize, something else to fix.

The Buddhists call this attachment—gripping too tightly to outcomes, believing life should be a certain way. And when it’s not, you suffer. You become stuck in a cycle of “almost happy”—convinced that joy is just one more improvement away.

But there is no “fixed” version of you. You are not a project to complete. You are a story unfolding, cracks and all.

The Courage to Be Imperfect

Leonard Cohen once wrote, “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” I used to hide my cracks—especially my emotions. I thought I’d finally be okay if I could suppress my anxieties, doubts, and flaws. But that only made things worse. The more I denied them, the more they controlled me.

Only when I accepted my imperfections—when I stopped pretending to be someone I wasn’t—did I find peace. The cracks didn’t disappear. But they stopped feeling like failures. They felt like me.

Psychologist Carl Jung said, “One who looks inside, awakens.” Real self-discovery happens not by hiding the darkness but by integrating it. By owning every part of your story.

The Freedom Beyond Perfection

I’m learning that life isn’t about having it all together. It’s about showing up—imperfect, unfinished, fully human. It’s about living now, not waiting for some future version of yourself to be “ready.” Because that version doesn’t exist.

The happiest people I know aren’t perfect. They aren’t optimized. They aren’t “finished.” They are real. They are present. They have made peace with their imperfections—and, in doing so, they have freed themselves.

They keep moving, living, learning, and getting better, but they are never perfect. So, if you’re waiting for the day you’ll finally be complete —stop. It’s never coming. And that’s good news. Because life doesn’t start when you’re perfect. It begins when you’re real.

Your imperfections aren’t obstacles.

They’re your life, gentle reader.

Peace, love and power.