“The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong in the broken pieces.” – Ernest Hemingway.

Lately, I’ve received compliments. Compliments that I can never get used to. Compliments awfully undeserved. I was told ‘you’re amazing’, ‘you’ve done great things’. And this was followed with ‘you’ve changed’. I may never be able to live up to the former statements. But I can accept the notion of change. Humans go through stages of change in love, passion, sadness, happiness and so on. We are broken down by our experiences.

There’s a Japanese world view and eastern aesthetic called Wabi-sabi. This Eastern philosophy describes as one of beauty that is ‘imperfect, impermanent and incomplete’. Wabi-sabi comes from Buddhist centred thinking but I feel this is something that we can all learn from regardless of different religious beliefs. I accept the idea of embracing our wounds and our brokenness. Impermanence, imperfections and fractures don’t represent the end of someone but an essential moment in one’s history. Our flaws should not be hidden from inspection but should be adorned with golden significance.

To repair these broken pieces require transformation, change. Personally speaking, I’ve changed by my own experiences and I honestly feel I’ve become a better person. I feel it in my bones. The truth is, the pristine is less beautiful than the broken. The shape of us is impossible to see until it’s fractured. We are unable to truly know ourselves until the broken crack runs its length. We are turning our broken selves into pieces of something more beautiful than the original product. Ultimately, imperfections are perfect. But only when we are able to change and like Hemingway said, come out stronger in broken pieces.