The Task of Being Human

In my half sleep, O God,

in my yawning confusion,

I thank you with a croaking voice.

How strange and spectacular

this body you have granted me

and fill with awareness each morning.

For tongue, tendon, teeth and skin,

for all the chemicals and connections

that make this collection of cells

into a being who can stand and sing,

who can seek Your love

and offer love in turn

for the mechanisms and mysteries

You have implanted within me

I will thank You

and set about the task of being human

as the sun rises

and my eyes begin to clear

- Mishkan T'filah: A Reform Siddur

There's about one week left in the Jewish month of Elul, which is my absolute favorite time of year. Elul is the month of preparation before the Jewish High Holidays - Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is marked by a fast, and is the day you ask forgiveness from God for all the sins and transgressions you've committed in the past year. During the 10 days before Yom Kippur (the "Days of Awe") you are obligated to make amends in the earthly world, repair relationships and right wrongs. This process of "turning" or "return," t'shuva, is what you are preparing for during Elul. You reflect on the past year and consider who you need to apologize to and where you need to improve. 

Here's what I love about this period: the High Holidays places an acceptance of humanness - our fallibility, our mistakes, our messiness, the inevitability of harm and rupture - at the center of Judaism. In its thousands of years of wisdom, it says: each year you will need to do t'shuva. You will have harmed people and need to make amends, you will have done things you need to take accountability for, you will have made mistakes that you need to learn from. And then next year, for as long as you live, you will need to do it again. Because no matter how much of a blank slate you started the year with, there will guaranteed be new things to repair.  Instead of demanding or hoping for perfection, Judaism radically accepts that being human is fundamentally and inherently about stumbling. The holiest time of the year says "if this is how it is, how do we deal with that?" and then presents t'shuva as a framework for living in reality.

I  find this difficult to remember in practice, however. In my Elul and t'shuva process, I often find myself reaching and hoping for perfectibility. It's New Years resolutions on steroids. This is the year that I will stop gossiping. This is the year that I will get my finances in order. This is the year that I will start exercising regularly, stop re-watching sitcoms, and never lose my temper. I make long lists of ways in which I will improve my life, live up to my values, and contribute meaningfully to the world. There was a period when I even made metrics of success for myself, like a business plan. I get stuck in this notion that there is some Platonic perfect version of myself that is achievable if I'm disciplined enough.  One day, I will never make mistakes, never feel bad about myself, never harm anyone else.  There's a phrase that gets repeated in wellness and mental health settings, "progress, not perfection." But most of us, I think, really hope that progress will eventually lead to perfection.

This unrealistic idea of perfectibility inevitably leads to harsh self-criticism. This was especially stark this year: about 10 days into Elul, I got sick with a monster case of tonsillitis that had me knocked out for almost a week. When I was finally back on my feet, instead of seeing my illness as another profound inevitability of humanness, I felt a sense of panic. I had fallen behind on my Elul work! Elul is a finite period of time! What if I didn't get everything done that I wanted to get done? I would be "bad" at Elul.

I've been noticing a similar theme more and more in my work as a therapist. Most patients who come into our program hope that we will teach them skills that allow them to never feel discomfort, sadness or anger again,  to act in alignment with their values 100% of the time, to never hurt their loved ones, and to have perfect, grounding self-care routines. Some obsess over whether they are doing healing "right," and ask for clarifications about whether they should breathe for counts of 7 or counts of 8. Most hope that the absence of depression is the same as the absence of pain.  Of course, this sets them up for failure and even more suffering: a bad day is a catastrophe. Snapping at your partner means you are an out of control, heinous abuser. Not washing your dishes means you are a disgusting trash person. Feeling rejected is a slippery slope to suicidal ideation.

Part of this is the nature of mental illness. Black and white thinking, outsized feelings of self-criticism and self-blame, poor self-esteem, lack of self-compassion, loss of perspective, perfectionism, and poor distress tolerance are all symptoms of depression and anxiety. Like with all mental illnesses, these come from complex roots that are different for each person - a critical (or abusive) parent, a family narrative of needing to be perfect to survive as the result of systemic oppression or intergenerational trauma, brain chemistry, etc.

But part of this, I feel more and more, is the resistance to the idea that this is what it means to be human. Being a human sucks! Who wants to mess up, feel shame or grief, get fired or broken up with?  Wouldn't it be great if those things didn't exist, if we never had to experience them? So, we try to avoid our humanness as much as possible, searching for tips and tricks to get us out of it.

What would it look like, instead, to have acceptance? Many - myself included - have misunderstood acceptance to mean, "I am a-ok with this!" Instead, acceptance is simply acknowledging what is, even when painful. Judaism - along with other ancient traditions, including, most notably and obviously, Buddhism - asks: how might we live our lives if we acknowledged that suffering, harm, and mistakes were an inevitable part of being human?  What if we accepted that imperfection was baked right in?  That it’s a feature, not a bug?

We might, for example, learn to tolerate, cope with, be with, adapt to, or even make friends with, pain. The adaptation (and/or appropriation) of Buddhist mindfulness and meditation traditions by contemporary wellness and mental health modalities is an attempt to popularize (and de-spiritualize) this wisdom. (And yet, to the point, I find there's often a misunderstanding that meditation is the work of "making your mind blank," i.e. ridding yourself of thoughts. Mindfulness suddenly becomes another way of attempting to avoid pain, instead of learning to exist with it. And when one's mind wanders, as all minds do, it becomes yet another reason to berate ourselves for  doing something "wrong," which spectacularly misses the point.)

We might also set aside a holy time of year to reflect, apologize, and make amends. To build skills around accountability, vulnerability, self-acceptance, and growth. To learn how to say to ourselves, "I really messed up. Ouch. That doesn't feel good,"  and then ask "how should I deal with that?" instead of spiraling into shame. And we might find relief and humility, seeing ourselves not as broken but as functioning exactly as designed. Perfection is not possible, not even desirable. So now what?

The above poem is from the Jewish Reform siddur (prayerbook), alongside the blessing you say upon waking, Modeh Ani. "Set about the task of being human." It's a daily reminder that commands: be vulnerable, wrong, accountable, messy, sad, fearful, joyful, relational, curious, creative, hurtful, forgiving, stumbling, imperfect. Go be a human, no more, no less.