I was listening to John Legend's song, All of me. The words got stuck in my head, " Cause all of me loves all of you...all your perfect imperfections". What does he mean by perfect imperfections?

We grow up believing in the fantasy of "true love" or "soul mates" where two perfect people love each other to have a perfect life. Ancient fables, children's story books, Disney movies, and romantic novels all end with the prince and the princess living happily ever after. But is real life and love "perfect" ?

Let's face the truth, most of us are not perfect. If we are honest, most of us have many flaws. We can have bizarre traits, wired habits, bad tempers, quixotic personalities and more. Often we are bitter as our lovers never meet our fairy tale expectation of being "perfect" or we blissfully project "perfection" onto them and ignore who they really are. Both these strategies are bound to fail on the long run.

Mybe the reason we are unhappy with love is this obsession with an impossible perfection. May be true love is accepting our lovers for who they are. Maybe true love is two imperfect people who are perfect for each other, as they can adore each other's " perfect imperfections". if they can't adore the imperfections hope they can at least tolerate them, as everything else is almost perfect. I guess that's what the song" All of me" is about.

But, not all imperfections can or should be tolerated. An extreme example would be an abusive partner, but it could be anything about them you can't live with, especially if you gave them enough chances to change. It might be trivial to others, but if it bothers you then don't ignore it. Some times walking away is not cowardice, but courage.