You've been whole all along

Pondering on the west coast

You’re Not Broken ✨

This is where I sit with my guitar, running my fingers over the crack that runs through the body—a battle scar from when I dropped it three years ago. The crack changed the sound, made it warmer somehow, more resonant. Sometimes what we think ruins us actually makes us more beautiful. The music doesn’t come from perfection; it comes from the willingness to play despite the cracks.

You’re not broken.

I know you don’t believe me. I know because I’ve been where you are—staring at yourself in the mirror, cataloging everything that’s wrong, everything that needs fixing, everything that makes you different from the people who seem to have it all figured out.

I know because I spent years treating myself like a project, like a house in desperate need of renovation. New habits, new mindsets, new morning routines, new ways of being. I collected self-help books like Band-Aids, convinced that the next one would finally fix whatever was fundamentally wrong with me.

But here’s what I discovered while making breakfast this morning, sauteeing beans into a pan with the easy rhythm of someone who’s finally made peace with imperfection, the idea that something is wrong with you is the actual problem.

You’re not broken. You never were.

The crack in my guitar didn’t ruin it—it gave it character. The scar on my forearm from a childhood accident doesn’t make me defective—it tells a story. The way my mind works differently, the way my heart feels things deeply, the way I see the world through my particular lens—none of this needs fixing.

We live in a culture obsessed with optimization, with the mythology of the perfect human. Social media feeds full of people who’ve apparently figured out the secret to flawless skin, perfect relationships, ideal careers, and unshakeable confidence. But here’s what they don’t show you: the messy moments, the uncertainty, the beautiful ordinariness of being human.

The meaning of happiness consists in the realization that life is a game, a play, a drama. Not a test you can fail. Not a problem you need to solve. Not a broken thing you need to fix. A game. A play. A drama with you as both the author and the star.

I learned this from watching how water moves around rocks in a stream. The water doesn’t try to fix the rocks, doesn’t wish they were different. It simply flows around them, over them, through them, creating something beautiful in the process. The rocks aren’t obstacles to the water’s perfection—they’re part of what makes the stream a stream.

Your quirks, your sensitivities, your struggles, your unique way of being—they’re not bugs in your system. They’re features. They’re what make you, you.

I was stacking stones in my backyard, not building anything in particular, just moving weight from one place to another. I picked up a stone that was oddly shaped—too round for stacking, too flat for balance. My first instinct was to set it aside, to look for a “better” stone. But then I noticed how the light caught its surface, how its unusual shape created an interesting shadow. It wasn’t the wrong stone. It was exactly the right stone for that moment, that light, that particular arrangement.

You are exactly the right person for your life. Not some improved version of yourself, not the person you think you should be, but you—right now, with all your perceived imperfections and beautiful peculiarities.

The self-help industry makes billions by convincing you that you’re a project in need of completion. That happiness is always three steps away, five habits away, one breakthrough away. But what if the breakthrough is realizing that you don’t need to be fixed?

What if the thing you’ve been calling your greatest weakness is actually your secret strength? What if your sensitivity isn’t something to overcome but something to honor? What if your different way of thinking isn’t a deficit but a gift?

I think about the ingredients I use in my pasta. Each one imperfect—the capers with its odd tart, the heirloom tomato with its lopsided shape, the garlic that grew too fast and got a little misshapen. I don’t try to make them into different ingredients. I work with what they are, and somehow, in the alchemy of cooking, they become something beautiful together.

That’s what acceptance looks like. Not resignation, not giving up on growth, but working with what is rather than waging war against it.

You can grow without being broken. You can change without being wrong. You can evolve without negating who you are right now.

I watched a dog in a park chase its tail with absolute joy. Not because it was trying to catch it, but because the chase itself was fun. The dog wasn’t broken for not catching its tail. It was perfect for being exactly what it was—a creature designed for play, for movement, for the simple pleasure of being alive.

When did we decide that being human meant being defective? When did we start believing that our natural state was something to be fixed rather than something to be celebrated?

You have struggles. We all do. You have areas where you want to grow. We all do. You have moments of doubt, of fear, of feeling like you don’t quite fit anywhere. We all do. None of this makes you broken. All of this makes you human.

The Japanese have a concept called wabi-sabi—the beauty of imperfection, the elegance of impermanence. They see cracks in pottery not as flaws but as part of the object’s story. They fill the cracks with gold, making them even more beautiful than before.

Your cracks are not your flaws. They’re where the light gets in. They’re where your compassion deepens. They’re where your humanity shows most clearly.

I’ve stopped trying to fix myself. Instead, I’ve started trying to understand myself. To listen to what my struggles are trying to teach me. To honor my sensitivity as a superpower rather than a weakness. To see my different way of being as a gift rather than a problem.

This doesn’t mean I don’t grow. It means I grow from a place of wholeness rather than brokenness. From acceptance rather than resistance. From love rather than fear.

You are not a rough draft waiting to be edited. You are not a problem waiting to be solved. You are not broken goods that need to be returned.

You are a complete sentence. A finished thought. A whole person with your own unique way of being in the world

The world doesn’t need another perfect person. It has enough people trying to be someone they’re not. What it needs is more people willing to be exactly who they are—messy, imperfect, beautifully human people who understand that their wholeness doesn’t depend on their flawlessness.

So stop trying to fix yourself. Start getting to know yourself. Stop trying to be someone else. Start being more of who you already are.

You’re not broken. You never were. You’re just human, and that’s not a bug—it’s the most beautiful feature of all.

Shouting you out from Japan Town 🇯🇵

You are not a rough draft. You are poetry in motion, a work of art that’s already complete. May you see yourself the way the universe sees you—whole, worthy, and wonderfully you.

All love and wholeness,

P.

By the way it would be great if you upgrade to paid ❤️