Read a formatted version of the text here: http://ahumanlikeyou.com/story-blog/removalofthemask I remember this moment very well. It was a lonely and quiet night in which nothing spectacular was happening. Just an 18-year-old kid sitting in his room. At that time, the only place in the world where I could at least somehow be calm. And as you would expect the silence of said night made the voices in my head a bit louder. „You are not good enough. You should go out and do something with your life. You should hook up with some girl you don’t even know. Because if you don’t do this, you will never be accepted. You are not allowed to show feelings. You are not allowed to show weaknesses. You are not allowed to make mistakes. Because if you do, everybody will laugh at you and hate you. The others aren’t struggling either. They are just waiting for you to fuck something up so they can judge you. So they can look down on you. Because you are not lovable enough for them.“ Words like these flashed across my mind all the time and it was pretty much impossible for me to feel good about myself in any way. I wanted to be a person that was free of all negativity, but I became so obsessed with focussing on my negative sites, that I forgot what my positive sites had been to begin with. When something good happened to me it would’ve always been too good to be true for me. I didn’t even realize when someone did really like me, because I was so trapped in my own thoughts and world. So ultimately I banned all the positive things out of my life and was left alone with this big bunch of negativity. I was so busy with reaching goals no human could possibly ever achieve. Being liked by everyone, attracting every single girl on this planet, having no weaknesses. While making not a single mistake. These „goals“ were so unrealistic, but I really believed that I just didn’t reach them, because I didn’t put in enough effort. So I tried more and more. And I tried to suppress my actual self more and more in order to be how I thought I had to be. I was so afraid of the most humane things existing in everyone of us. I didn’t want to show my feelings, because they would make me vulnerable. I didn’t want to be vulnerable, because that would mean being different, being a mistake. I didn’t want to make mistakes, because people would have judged me for that. They would have stopped to accept me. And if you are not accepted you will eventually just fall apart. But ironically enough my actual needs turned out to be the embodiment of humanity itself. Actually I just wanted to be loved and accepted for being who I truly was. But how could I possibly achieve something like that, if I was too scared to show the things that define who I truly was? I was very clueless up to said night and I didn’t know what to do anymore. Suddenly I found myself being in a big dilemma. There are times where we humans can feel so fragile. Where we just aren’t able to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong. Where we are so desperately trying to hold everything we have together and are so occupied in defending the building we call our worldview. Where we want to prevent the foundation of what we deeply believe in from collapsing. Where we are so afraid of seeing everything giving up the ghost in front of us. Because we know, when this building is demolished all we’re going to have left is nothing. And we are so scared of not knowing what is going to happen after that. However, that certain night, I didn't feel that way. I was so tired of fighting for the beliefs I had back then. And I was lacking the energy to hold it all together for any longer. After one and a half years I was just done. The pain, the struggles, this fight. I couldn’t bear with it all any longer. I was plain exhausted. This just couldn’t be what is called living a nice life. Living a nice life just couldn’t result from banning every aspect of your personality and humanity. One and a half years before said night I made a decision in order to feel better about myself and be happier. Nothing has changed since that day. It even got worse to be honest. I was the unhappiest person in the world back then, because of said decision. So I just stopped. Trying to hold everything together. Defending my worldview. Preventing the foundation of my beliefs from collapsing. I just let everything I was thinking about the world or myself give up the ghost. I just let myself have left nothing without being scared of the consequences. I just stopped giving a fuck about that. And as a result somewhere in me a barrier broke down allowing many things I kept outside of myself for a long time to flow into my world again. Suddenly my world of black and white started fading away. Everything I saw, I felt, I thought took on color. Suddenly I could feel so much kindness from the bottom of my heart. I started to embrace everything that had something to do with me. My body, my fears, my flaws, my failures. Suddenly everything I felt was so warm and so gentle that I just weren’t able to judge myself for not being perfect anymore. It felt as if I was forgiving myself for what I did the past eighteen months. And suddenly my mask fell off and what became apparent was the face of a crying little boy. Not crying because he was sad, but because for the first time in his life he has felt truly deep joy. I was born anew, crying like a baby that had no idea how its life would turn out to be. I felt like an infant that had no idea where his boundaries were. I felt like a youngster who had learned a new lesson, but in comparison to his life as a whole it was only so much. But in the end I felt like myself. An 18-year-old wannabe-adult who had just had the best moment of his life so far. Ultimately we’re all like little kids. When we cover our faces with our hands so no one will be able to see us. But by doing that we are also preventing ourselves from seeing the world as it truly is. We need to remove our masks and show our true faces risking to be seen in order to be liked for who we are. Because if we stop putting the focus on our own imperfection, but rather on what is happening around us, if we just start to observe without judging, we will eventually realize that everybody on this planet is fighting their very own battle, their own game of hide-and-seek. And eventually we will understand that we’re all in the same boat. I totally closed my mind to the world, because I was so scared of what other people would think of me. But it extremely relieved me after I tried to show myself. Of course that wasn’t always easy, but I got so much from it. The following weeks would turn out to be an emotional rollercoaster. Not only, because I did everything different from then on, but also because of allowing myself to receive love. Love I didn’t really think I deserved back then …

Read a formatted version of the text here: http://ahumanlikeyou.com/story-blog/wedeservelove Love is a fucking big word. There’s probably no general meaning with which everybody agrees. I guess the way you see and define love is dependent on your past experiences with it. Love can be literally anything. Before I took off my mask, love was something utterly unimportant to me. For me it was all about having physical relationships with girls without this emotional stuff. I didn’t really think I needed love. In fact, I didn’t seem to notice the love that was happening all around me the whole time. And of course I also didn’t seem to notice when somebody else honestly liked me on an emotional level, because well, it just didn’t matter to me. I thought I could be happy without all that stuff and that people who were in relationships were stupid, because they restricted themselves to only one person. I was pretty much running away from love. But after taking off my mask I was ready for anything. I just wanted to observe myself and my feelings more and more and see how I would feel and react in whatever situation. So naturally I chose to stop running away, but to let myself receive love. From that moment on I really wanted to be in a relationship, I guess. But it didn’t quite work the way I expected it to. You know I believe that by any means every human being has to learn how to deal with love at first. There is this famous quote from the book „The Perks of Being a Wallflower“ that really stuck with me since reading it first: „We only accept the love we think we deserve.“ There’s no doubt that everybody on this planet deserves love, but does everybody on this planet also think they deserved it? Probably not. There are bounteous people who think that they are not worthy of love. Maybe you’re one of them. I myself am still struggling with accepting true, unconditional love as well. In my opinion it is one of the hardest things to receive something without doing anything. To receive something for just being who you are. For me love often feels like a gift that surpasses all your expectations. Where you just gape and say: „Oh, that’s too much of a good thing and certainly too much for someone like me! I’m afraid, I can’t accept it“. The giver then replies with: „But I like you so much and I think that this is appropriate for you.“ And at some point you cease being stubborn and take the gift, but the bad feeling of not being worthy of it and the thoughts about why someone would give so much to an ordinary person like you won’t go away. Because you didn’t do anything to deserve it. Our whole lives we’re told that nothing in this world is for free, so we anticipate love to be no exception to the rule. And thus we try to persuade the ones we love or want to love of how special we are in order to receive their love, in order to feel better about ourselves, in order to fit in so that we can tell the world: „Hey, I’m loved! I’m not alone, I am not a failure!“. But by trying to love and be loved so desperately, by really wanting to be in a relationship just for the sake of being in a relationship, just for the sake of not being alone, you won’t be happy when you finally are in a relationship. Because love is not something you choose to do. It just happens. Love is something that just happens! Way too many people think that if they love and are loved back they will be happy all of a sudden. They carry the needs of safety, comfort and closeness to another person with them. But these people don’t understand that these feelings are not the result of loving each other. It’s exactly the other way round: We love somebody because that person makes us feel safe. We love somebody, because we feel comfortable around that person. And of course we love somebody because we’re close to them. Finding someone and developing these feelings for each other is truly beautiful. I believe love to be the result of that. But as I said, the biggest love won’t give you anything when you don’t think you deserved it and thus don’t accept it. I had to learn that the hard way. In my past I continously had bad luck with girls. Some of them just made fun of me from the start without me realizing it. And sometimes I would suddenly be soooo „in love“ with a person I maybe kissed once. And I chased after them for months without having a real reason to do so, even when their interest in me was clearly no longer present anymore. As a result I always tried to find the mistake within myself without even considering the possibility that maybe not everything was my fault. When someone hurt me it never was, because that person maybe was just a stupid fuckface or because it simply should not be that way. Or because we just weren’t made for one another and didn’t fit together. No. It was always me who was not good enough for her and thus deserved to suffer that much. Because maybe she would realize it some day that there was a person who was going through so much pain just to be with her. Maybe one day she would just wake up and start loving me back. SPOILER ALERT: This assumption turned out to be bullshit. There were two girls in my life in particular who made me realize that and I really did suffer a lot for them. I can’t say that I enjoyed it, but I learned many things during that time. I met the first girl in that very summer when I removed my mask. At that time I still had difficulties dealing with my feelings and showing them, because I had rejected them for so long. This turned out to be the central issue in this affair, because everytime when she wanted to show me her affection towards me, I didn’t even notice, since allowing feelings and becoming vulnerable felt so wrong and strange at that time. Eventually she made it so obvious when she just texted me how she wanted to see me again and kiss me again. But I, behaving like a total jerk, thought that I still had to prove myself at this point and so I rejected her. Just because I simply felt that she was way too good for me. Just because I felt that I didn’t deserve someone like her. A few weeks later she got into a relationship with somebody else. I think the main reason why I held onto her so much was her boyfriend, because he treated her like crap and I, clinging to our past beautiful memories, wanted to show her so badly that I would have been the better choice for her. The feeling that you have to convince somebody else of how good you are is actually indicating pretty well that this particular person is not worth the struggle. If they really liked you, then they would give you the security you needed in order to feel accepted the way you are by that person. Love is not about proving somebody else over and over that you are enough. Feeling like you're enough around somebody is the proof that the love between you is real. But sometimes the other person is not the problem, but rather it's your own self-esteem and you just can't accept the love from others because you can't accept that you yourself are lovable enough for it. That's when things start to get a bit more complex and in my situation, both turned out to be the case. Ultimately she broke up with her boyfriend and of course I immediately thought that my big chance had finally come then. I wanted to do everything to get together with her and it stressed me the fuck out. But in the end it didn’t matter, because shortly afterwards she got into a relationship with somebody else. Not for a single moment had I been perceived as a possible partner for her. As a consequence I realized that what I tried to achieve all the time was futile. At a later time I saw that even though we got on well with one another, she had nothing which could have had enriched my life in any way. Our interests and lifestyle were just too different and I often had the feeling that in the long run we could not have been able to hold talks beyond the scope of small talk. But through her I learned how important it is to be in tune with somebody else regarding interests, worldviews and lifegoals. Of course, they don’t have to be exactly the same, otherwise I could just date my mirror image. I guess two people have to excite one another and be a small incentive in order for a long-term-relationship to work. Eventually the second girl was a person like that. We could talk about anything, because it simply was beautiful to listen to the other person’s opinion while noticing how we were enthusing each other. I fell for her pretty fast, but I had bad luck. She already had a boyfriend. But because of me frantically striving after love and wanting a relationship so desperately, we came out of touch pretty fast. Many things happened in her life after reestablishing contact a few weeks later. She ended the relationship with her boyfriend, she got to know some other boy who was actually there for her during that time, while I was struggling with my own problems and finally the two of them came together. But in contempt of her being in a relationship she would always show her interest in me. And when I desperately asked her whether we would get together someday maybe, she replied with: „Maybe, I don’t know right now.“ That was the biggest mistake she made and in a situation like that it’s the biggest mistake you can make in general. Getting rejected and being told that there will never be a future between you and the other person hurts very much, but after that it’s over. It’s just over. You can get over it eventually. But if you’re held in suspense it’s a bit like waiting for your own execution. And thus I couldn’t put her behind myself and I even stayed in touch with her, because we were friends and her boyfriend had been a buddy of mine as well. It had never been easy to see these two together in front of my eyes, but I somehow bore with it. I bore with many things for her and I gave up a lot of things for her. I did plenty of things just for her. I wanted to change. I wanted to change in order for her to like me. I wore certain clothes because of her, I ate certain things because of her, I listened to certain musicians because of her. I even got into fucking therapy for her, because I thought that there was something wrong with me and I had to improve myself in order to be able to deal with her presence. And as a consequence I really became a healthier, calmer and generally more positive person, because of her. Actually I’m really grateful for that. Who knows what kind of person I would have become if I hadn’t met her. But when she finally rejected me, it really felt like a relief. The only problem was that my life and all my motivations were so characterized by her. I really did only live for this single girl and I did literally anything to be liked and wanted and loved by her. And with a few words all of that vanished, leaving nothing over for me to work towards or look forward to. I didn’t care about anything the first weeks after that. At that time my life was just static and the only things I felt were emptiness and apathy. So I experienced what being alone felt like. The state everybody fears so much, that they choose to get into relationships with people who they don’t click with. People who are toxic to them. Just for the sake of not being confronted with themselves and their own shortcomings. It felt like nothing. And I didn’t want to feel nothing. But I had no clue what to do. Somehow I had no real identity anymore. Prior to this I only paid attention to what others would think of me, but never to what I thought about myself. I fled from myself by falling in love. Not with other persons, but rather in the idea of a relationship, the idea of not being alone anymore. The girls I allegedly fancied had been more like an association with said idea. So ultimately I ended up with no one to chase after. And I thought to myself: „When I’m so afraid of being alone, I have to learn how to deal with that and be alone. Because how could I ever show my true self to anybody when I constantly pretend to be someone I am not, only because I don’t want to lose a certain person? What does that have to do with love in the slightliest, when I have to change myself? When I can’t just relax? Just in order to not be alone?“. So I asked myself: „How do you learn to be alone? What does it even mean to be alone?“. I guess for the main part being able to be alone means being able to accept yourself. With all your flaws and imperfections. It means being fascinated by yourself. By what you’re doing, by what you’re thinking and by what you aim to reach. It means thinking that you’re beautiful, regardless of how you look like and sometimes prettying yourself just because you love being dressed up. It means liking yourself, feeling safe, trusting yourself. I believe that being able to be alone with yourself means being able to love yourself. Being able to feel like you're enough just by yourself. It doesn’t matter how many people you have in your life, in the end you yourself are the only person who is always there. So I guess it’s important to come clean with yourself and stop hating yourself, but rather cheer yourself up. To treat yourself well, even when you made a mistake. To still love yourself despite something bad happening, because in this way you receive the warmth you require in order to be happy, without having to depend on somebody else. And that’s what stills one's fears of being left alone. The fact that in the end there will be one person left who really loves you. And I believe that, before you’re able to unreservedly love with full commitment, you have to get this through your head. Because this allows you to be entirely yourself without fearing to be alone in the end. It’s the misfortune of the other person who doesn’t recognize your beauty then. Because even when every person on this planet is rejecting you, there will always be someone, who can give you so much more than anybody in this world: You. I really hope that you love yourself or that you will be able to love yourself one day. Some time after everything I told you so far, I got to know a beautiful human being and I really enjoyed the time with her. It was like I described it earlier: From the beginning I felt secure and comfortable with her and thus we became close to each other pretty fast. I could simply relax when she was around without having to be afraid of anything and that was such a beautiful feeling. I felt so calm around her and I believe that this is so important in general. Many people tend to say that it’s only true love when you feel like you’re in an emotional rollercoaster. I call bullshit. I think it’s the other way round. I don’t want my relationship to hover between extremely positive and extremely negative all the time. For me that’s more like the source of insecurity in a relationship. In order to be able to really relax, you need stability and that’s what I got with her. There where many times when I told her that I couldn’t quite realize that she was there with me and that everything was just so beautiful and relaxed without a catch. It’s somehow been so hard to handle the fact that she simply liked me. As if I was already beautiful enough the way I was. One time after seeing her, I was really overwhelmed with emotion when I was alone again. I was just so swamped, because of someone giving me so much affection unconditionally. And at the same time I was so happy because of that. I was so happy that I had to cry because of said joy, because of said overpowering. There were too many feelings all at once. I experienced something like that very rarely, but at no time did it feel bad. I think that this was the moment when I finally became able to accept her love. The love I thought I deserved. After that I was plain happy. It was the first time ever that I sensed this kind of affection to be so on the spot in me. At that point I learned how to receive love. Unfortunately it didn't work out in the end. None of us were really at fault for that. We didn't do anything wrong. But I learned quite a lot through her and with her. And one thing I learned was that you sometimes have to set a bird free and see for yourself if it will eventually fly back to you or not. Sometimes that's all you can and should do. Anyways, what gives you the right to say you deserved love? And how should you love yourself when you think you haven’t deserved love in the first place? I think "deserve" is the wrong word. You have to do something in order to deserve something. You don’t have to do anything for love. Nobody can earn love. Everybody is entitled to love. I believe that you should accept the gift of love someone gives you every now and then without feeling the need to do something for it in exchange. Sometimes you already did enough by just existing and being the person you are. And let’s be honest: if someone is willing to present you something for no reason, isn’t that the best proof ever that you mean very much to that person? And isn’t that the best proof ever that you’re special, when somebody else is giving so much thought to you? It’s simple to tell yourself that you’re not perfect enough to be worthy of love. And still I think it’s the flaws and imperfections which make a person the one they are. As well are they the reason why you will never find yourself in a perfect relationship. Long enough had I tried to cover my own shortcomings, until I noticed that it had been our flaws that made us interesting, unique and lastly beautiful …

Read a formatted version of the text here: http://ahumanlikeyou.com/story-blog/flaws When I took off my mask, I made two decisions. The first one was to show myself how I really was. I’ve already talked to you about that. The second decision I made was to stop trying to be perfect, because I had done that a lot the months before that and as you now know to some extent, I ended up being a complete disaster by doing that. I believe that these decisions were subconscious. The only two things I could think about at this moment were „You are okay the way you are“ and „Flaws are allowed“. Anyway for some reason it was so clear to me all of a sudden that I was allowed to be imperfect and that was the best feeling in the world. The gentleness I felt that day really lifted a burden from my shoulders, because I stopped trying to come up to a standard that was simply impossible to come up to and started believing that I was already okay and that beauty arises from the very things that won’t ever make me perfect, the things I tried to hide for so long: my rough edges. There is that beautiful line in the song „Anthem“ by Leonard Cohen: „There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.“ This quote is now officially Andy-approved, because it’s just so fucking true. And when you think about it, perfectionism really fucks everything up that can be fucked up. Perfectionism is the reason why we are so obsessed with doing everything right when we interact with another person that in the end we lose them, because we are trying way too hard and we alter ourselves, because we believe that that’s what they want and with every rejection we try harder. Because it’s not nature’s fault for us two not fitting together, it’s always our own fault for not being perfect enough, right? Right. Perfectionism is the reason why our piece of art will never be finished or even considered good by ourselves, because we only compare ourselves and our work to pieces that are already finished and we’re probably putting them on a pedestal, which then leads to us always thinking that we’re worse than that artist by default. Because these artists were good in what they were doing from the get go and never had to live through the journey of learning their craft and it’s just us who are not talented enough, right? Right. Perfectionism is the reason why we will always be unhappy with our bodies, because there’s always that one person who looks a little bit better, who is a little bit thinner, a little bit more ripped or a little bit taller. And while they have an absolutely stunning face, we, ourselves, look pretty average. And that’s a bad thing, because every person on the planet is attracted to the same perfect body shapes and we’re just unlucky that we don’t have them and so we have to do everything to get them and to finally be lovable, right? Right. Perfectionism is the reason why „Duke Nukem Forever“ became such a shitty game. Really, they should have brought it out in 2001 rather than changing stuff all the time and releasing it in 2011. But to be fair, the fact that you have to pee on the final boss after defeating him is pretty rad. But the biggest problem that comes with perfectionism is that unless it’s a school test with a defined number of points that you can get, you can’t measure it. You just don’t know, when it’s perfect. And what does „perfect“ mean anyways? Your „perfect“ doesn’t have to be my „perfect“ and my „perfect“ is different from my best friend’s „perfect“. And that means that even if somehow something was so good that I called it perfect, it wouldn’t be perfect for you. Maybe extraordinarily good, but not perfect. It just wouldn’t, which in turn would result in that thing not being perfect in general. You can do anything you want, but you are definitely not going to reach perfection. But why do we even want to be perfect so badly? Why are we so hostile to our own mistakes and flaws? And if we don’t know when it is enough, because of perfection not being measurable, when will we stop then? Is the problem really something superficial like our looks or our skillset? If you’re so desperately trying to avoid mistakes and thus any room for critique on your work, your body or even yourself, aren’t you just running away from something? I, myself am the master of perfectionism. In fact, three years after saying „Fuck you, perfectionism!“ for the first time, I’m still fighting with it and perfectionism is a recurring theme that comes up over and over again in my therapy sessions. When I get to know a girl I am interested in, then usually there are two scenarios that can happen: Either she is able to show her interest in me very well and I notice it, or she is not able to show it so well, if she is interested in me or not. If she is able to show her interest in me, then I feel very comfortable in my skin, but then I am so tempted to check this girl for every tiniest detail that might be a problem, because I want to have the most perfect girl of perfect girls. I always have to fucking remind myself then that this will never happen and I have to ask myself, if this really bothers me or if it is just stupid bullshit my brain wants me to believe. Both has been the case before. I don’t know the exact reason why I’m looking for perfection here. It might be the feeling that there is always someone better out there that is connected with a fear of getting to know that certain somebody and having to hurt the „less perfect“ person, because of that. As if it was so easy, right? As if feelings could be so easily deleted and persons so easily replaced, right? Hahaha. Fuck me. If however she is not so good in showing her interest in me clearly, or if she isn’t interested in me at all, then I get very insecure and tend to overthink a little bit … much. Like „What if she doesn’t think that I am attractive?“, „I can’t hit on her or kiss her, she’s definitely not interested in me. She would hate me if I did.", "She probably doesn’t like me anyway.“, „She probably likes somebody else and I can do nothing then, because I’m not special enough.“, „I’m not good enough for her. I need to be perfect to be liked by anybody, but I am not.“, "I don't deserve her", „I am a failure“. And these thoughts are a brief glimpse of the complexes I’ve been fighting against since I was 14 years old, my very own demons I carry with me. You can imagine how paralysed I am in situations like that and you can imagine how shit scared I am of these situations and how much I try to prevent them from happening. Of course in the end it’s also just stupid bullshit my brain wants me to believe, but it’s much harder to fight back. I know that these are the results of a huge fear of being rejected by people I somehow care about. And my fear of being rejected is so big that I sometimes really try to be perfect instead of being myself, because I take a very short-term view. And thus I try to avoid my flaws and that makes me feel pretty uncomfortable. And that can’t be the solution. In situations like that I think it’s important to be completely compassionate with yourself and tell yourself that no matter what happens, it’s okay and you’re okay, because otherwise your demons will drag you down pretty quickly. It’s okay to show your interest in another person and it’s okay to at least wish for them to think the same about you. It’s okay if somebody doesn’t like you, because nobody is liked by everyone and that’s pretty much impossible. And it’s okay to feel stuff, because that is what makes you a human after all. And thus it’s okay to have flaws, because everyone has them and the right people will like them, if you decide to show them. And no matter what happens: You are still lovable enough the way you are. Personally for me, these are very hard things to say sometimes and I would be lying if I told you that I’ve already got the hang out of it, because I don’t. But I know that if I don’t fight back somehow, my demons will always win. And the way you fight back is through self-compassion. Another big perfectionism-problem of mine is my music and not only composing my music, but my music-career in general. When I write songs, I sometimes could sit on just one part for hours. I think about every note, every possible dissonance and oh my god let’s not start with transitions between song-parts. But many of these problems are now problems of the past, since I get better and better everyday. Where I really tend to procrastinate and overthink stuff is on the business site of my career, since I’ve never ever done a thing like this before. I want to have the perfect solution, the perfect business-plan, the perfect content, the perfect website. I just want to be so over-prepared without well actually moving forward. Just so you get an idea of how bad it is: I started writing my album in the summer of 2013, It was finished a year later in 2014, it was recorded in early 2015 and when did it come out? The summer of 2016. I just wasn’t ready yet. I had to do this before and that before and learn this and learn that and read something about this and that. I was soooo scared of doing anything wrong, because I didn’t want to live on the streets and starve to death. A week before I made my website public basically everything outside of my texts was written in a strange marketing way and I would never ever speak like that normally. I thought that that was what I had to articulate myself like, even though it just sounded boring, generic and fake. Fortunately I changed my mind and I am now trying to get across as natural as possible. So yeah, basically I was just scared of doing something new and failing at something new, believing that if I did so, I wouldn’t have a second chance. I’m also pretty bad at dealing with uncertainty as you might have guessed by what I told you in the previous example. And just by telling you all this I believe I might have come up with a fraction of a solution to all perfectionism-problems: Your urge to be perfect can be weakened by giving up control every once in a while and embracing uncertainty. Because when you strive to be perfect, you want to control something you will never be able to control and that's the real reason why you will never be finished. You can’t control who likes you or finds you attractive. You can’t control who enjoys your art or your business or how everything will play out in the long run. You can’t control how others look in relation to you. And because you can’t control that, you will not know. And you can either be scared by that simple fact or you can be excited by it. But I believe that anybody should learn how to deal with surprises of all kinds — no matter if bad or good or small or big ones — because if you’re always paranoid about what bad thing might happen next, then you will never be able to settle and enjoy something. You could just as well look forward to the next good thing that might happen next and embrace uncertainty. But enough talk about perfection! Let’s talk about where the beauty comes from: imperfection. So we can’t be perfect. Never ever. That means that we’re imperfect. For me, being imperfect was like hell for a long time. I was really really really obsessed with being perfect. Now I know - and you as well - that I’ve been running away from my fears and complexes and partly still am. But what I’ve discovered is how relieving it can be to gather the courage to be imperfect. How do you reach imperfection? By stopping to care about being perfect. How do you stop caring about being perfect? By showing compassion towards your own flaws and by embracing uncertainty and accepting that life in itself is unpredictable. And when you start letting your flaws happen, you will discover that your own flaws are pretty much unique. Maybe your nose has not the best shape and somebody might have a similar nose, but maybe it marries up with their face better. Maybe you and somebody else are insecure about the same thing, but the cause behind that insecurity is a completely different one and so you get insecure in completely different situations. And this uniqueness in flaws makes every single person even more unique. And that is the reason why imperfection results in individuality and why individuality results in beauty. Many people take the perfection approach when it comes to individuality. They follow certain rulebooks and guides in order to set themselves apart from everybody else, but they forget that many others are using the same guidelines. And so everybody tries to be different, but they’re all doing the same, because they think it’s the right thing to do, while I, a grey-haired guy am just standing there in my mom jeans and my taylor swift shirt shaking my head (AND SHAKING IT OFF WHOOP). But your own individuality is only determined by your own flaws, your own feelings, your own desires, your own taste and your own decisions. Let me give you a few examples why these things are not necessarily bad: My former orchestration teacher told me that when he writes a melody and can’t decide between two notes that would both sound good, then he just stops over thinking about which one sounds better and just takes one of the two and moves on without caring. He makes a living with his music and is probably the smartest musician I know personally. Modest Mussorgsky’s „Pictures at an exhibition“ is one of the most well known piano works and has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists. It also got rearranged and orchestrated by many other composers, even though Mussorgsky made many mistakes from a music theoretical point of view unlike many others back in his day. But maybe it’s exactly this fact that makes his music interesting and beautiful. Maybe you’re struggling with your body shape and think that you are too big for example and you want to be much thinner than you are right now. Let me tell you then that not everybody on this planet is attracted to thin people. Some people really love people of your shape. You’re not unattractive because society or somebody else says so. In the contrary, even if you want to lose weight, there is nothing more attractive than being comfortable with your body and showing it. Maybe that’s the best diet one could be on. When I communicate my flaws and my emotions in a natural way with others I’m putting myself out there. But I also give others the chance to connect with me and to like me, because they can relate to what I’m going through right now. And of course it’s the other way round as well. Had I remained silent about these things, then I wouldn’t have had nearly as many deep and meaningful connections and conversations as I have today and every single one of them feels special in their own way. So be brave and accept your flaws as a part of yourself, because you already have everything that makes you an interesting and individual human-being. And there will always be people who will like exactly these things about you the most: That weird sounding passage of your song, that particular quirk you tried to hide way too long, this particular part of your body you’re not that comfortable with or your big project you’re working on, even if it’s not 100% ready, but maybe 85% or 25%. Because being perfect is exhausting and being perfect is boring because it’s so predictable and dull. Being perfect is impossible, so stop being perfect and have the courage to be different. Because it’s our flaws that make us beautiful. However, if you don’t do that, you will eventually find yourself in the center of the earth. Just as I did …

Read a formatted ersion of the text here: http://ahumanlikeyou.com/story-blog/center I am the focal point of everyone and everything Everybody’s looking at me, because I am not perfect enough It’s me against the world I am hiding because of you I am drinking because of you To dream of the day I become happy I don’t want to be seen But I am and it wears me out I don’t want it to continue I want it to stop I don’t want everything to revolve around me I don’t want to be the center of the earth

Read a formatted version of the text here: http://ahumanlikeyou.com/story-blog/memories “I really have to go now. I’m already late”, she told me while repeatedly pressing her soft lips onto mine. Ironically, it was at that moment, when the song we listened to said: “I miss your lips”, as if it had knewn that we would never ever kiss each other again. We made out that day after knowing each other for four days and emotionally connecting unusually fast for that amount of time. At least that was how I felt. For her, it was probably a onetime thing and just for fun. Something like the klimax of the foregone four days. But for me, it was the exact opposite. Only the beginning of something bigger, the tip of the iceberg. For me, the fact that we made out after getting to know each other so quickly was the proof that our connection was something special. And because of that one moment we shared together, that one single memory, I thought she felt the same way. But she didn’t. She fell in love with somebody else. We’ve already talked a little bit about me and her previously. At that time I couldn’t quite understand, why something like that was happening, because that one moment we had was so beautiful and it felt so good. I knew we both enjoyed it. I really clung to that one single memory we shared with each other. I clung to it so much that I thought the feelings associated with it will last forever. And I even projected them onto her, believing that deep down she felt the same way. And that was a big mistake. After a lot of time and struggling I learned something really important. The reason why some people share so close bonds with each other. It is because they share so many different memories. They’ve been through a lot together and because of that, they have established a strong emotional connection over time. What her and I shared was one single moment. But she and him had lots of more stronger memories they shared with each other. They were actually there for each other when they both needed it the most, while I was clinging to something so insignificant in comparison to that. It was after that realization, that I decided to call this chapter of my story “Marvellous Memories”, but I didn’t understand the full meaning of that name for a long time. Because of that, the first conclusion I drew was, that I just had to create many more memories with her, so that we can establish the same bond and then she would finally see how much she liked me and we would come together.   Seems legit. To be fair, at that point, it was the only idea I had that I hadn’t tried out yet. So I tried. It didn’t work out. Because she just didn’t have the same feelings I had for her. She probably never did. Heck, today I’m pretty sure that even I never did. We humans are experts at holding on to our pasts, because when we try to deal with something without knowing how to do it, we orientate ourselves towards our own memories. Yes, it’s true that the moments and memories we create with other people will define the feelings and connection we will have towards them. No matter if positive or negative. But memories are no feelings themselves. They are just associations with the feelings we once had. We are just recycling them. And most of the time we even tend to unwittingly exaggerate them. And when we do that, we flee into another reality, where we can untroubledly live through these feelings and past moments over and over again. By doing the same thing, we also imagine perfect moments sometimes or conversations that will never ever happen. All that based on a single moment. Or should I say based on the wish of being better than you are right now? But doing that prevents us from looking forward and perceiving the world as it is right now. The real world. Just because I made out with her and wanted to be in love with her so badly, I can’t expect the situation to be exactly the same in two weeks. You can’t control nor tell, if they will develop feelings for you. And you can’t just project your own feelings onto them, because you still want the past to be true. No, you have to adapt to the present! A few months later, I met another person. We’ve already talked about her as well. At the beginning we had wonderful moments and I couldn’t even believe that someone could unconditionally like me so much. With her, I made my first experiences with something I would call unconditional affection. But she lived very far away from me and we couldn’t see each other very regularly. That, on the other hand, had the consequence of our flame slowly fading away. Not because we weren’t trying. We phoned almost everyday. But we couldn’t really develop our relationship by not being able to see each other for so long. And after some time I finally realized the source of every emotional connection: You have to create new moments over and over and over again with somebody in order to form a connection that will involve long-term feelings. It’s not only about having many memories to look back, it’s also about which feelings these memories involve and how often they occur and if they are positive or negative. It’s so simple when you heard it once. That’s the reason why you tell that particular friend of yours all of your secrets. Because he never judged you once and that made you feel comfortable around him. So now he’s the “I can tell him everything”-guy. That’s the reason why you now are somehow having a crush on that girl you saw every day for the past two weeks. Because you could forget everything else when you were with her. That’s why you saw her everyday in the first place. And when you’re not around her, you miss her because of that. Or, probably more accurately, you miss this careless feeling you associate with her. That’s the reason why you are so in love with this particular brand. Because they are telling you the same message and story over and over again until you started connecting specific aspects of that story you identified with to this brand. And that’s also the reason why you hate this one guy. Because he was rude to you or your friends in the past and does things you can’t stand. And thus, you perceive him as an asshole. Rikku, my nonexistend crush from Final Fantasy X, once said something that really made me think, but I couldn’t agree more when I first heard it: “Memories are nice, but that’s all they are.” - Rikku, Final Fantasy X And well, that’s really all they are. They are just a thing that happened in the past. That’s why you shouldn’t fixate so much on the events of the past. Don’t fixate on how beautiful it was the last time. Rather think about how it will be as beautiful or even more beautiful the next time! And if there is no next time, then you were just not made for each other. Doesn’t matter if friendship or romantic relationship. And that’s totally okay, too! One last thing, I wanted to say is that the beauty of this concept lies in the fact that you will create different memories with every human-being. And that means that everything bad that occured to you in the past has nothing to do with a person you didn’t know back then. When your demons want to talk you into believing that a person you like is bad, because of past negative experiences with others, try to make yourself one thing clear:  You don’t have any proof yet, that this person will be the same. We should all focus more on the present and less on the past. Because the past is there to learn out of it. And not to cling onto it. We can only improve our lives when we see what’s in front of us and leave behind what’s already at the back of us. Now, let’s finish the first big part of my story. Let’s connect the dots a little bit further. It was when I removed my mask. When I accepted that I was worthy of love. When I saw the beauty in my imperfection. When I accepted my past … It was then, when I stopped being the center of the earth and started being just a part of it.

Read a formatted version of this text here: http://ahumanlikeyou.com/story-blog/part I am the focal point of everyone and everything Everyone on this planet wants to bring me down And everything on this planet is happening to harm me Everybody’s looking at me, because I am not perfect enough Everybody’s laughing at me, because I am a joke Everybody’s waiting for me to make a mistake, because they want to judge me Everybody’s hating me, because I am the only one who is struggling Everybody’s thinking that I am not good enough It’s me against the world And it stresses me out I am hiding because of you Because I only feel safe, when I am on my own In my room, where nobody else is Where nobody else can blame me for who I am Not even my nearest and dearest I am drinking because of you Because I can’t find another way to deal with your expectations I need my daily dose of alcohol It’s the only way for me to forget the failure I am The only way for me to feel good about myself To dream of the day I become happy To dream of the day I have no problems anymore To dream of the day I am perfect To dream of the day I am liked by everybody That day is not today and it won’t be tomorrow I’m still too weak and too bad as I am right now I don’t want to be seen I don’t want to be laughed at I don’t want to make mistakes I don’t want to be judged I don’t want to be disliked or hated I don’t want to be a bad person But I am and it wears me out I don’t want it to continue I want it to stop I don’t want everything to revolve around me I don’t want to be the center of the earth, I just want to be a part of it. I want to be a part in the worlds of the people I care about. I want to be imperfect with them. I want to laugh with them. I want to make mistakes and struggle with them. I want my true self to be enough for them. Maybe not everything on this planet is happening to bring me down. Maybe not everyone wants to harm me. Maybe not everything revolves around me. Maybe it’s not me against the world. Maybe it’s not even everybody against their own worlds. Maybe our battles are so unbelievably interconnected with each other. Maybe everybody needs the support of others sometimes. Maybe all these people are not looking at me all the time. Maybe they are not judging me all the time. Maybe they look at something completely different while looking at my direction. Maybe they notice me and want me to be a part of their lives while looking at my direction. Maybe they don’t think of me as a failure. Maybe they don’t want to judge me all the time. Maybe they don’t blame me for who I am. Maybe they want to show me their love and affection. Maybe they want to give me everything they’ve got, I don’t know why but they do. And maybe the only thing that keeps me from becoming happy and loved and beautiful and attractive; maybe the only thing that keeps me from accepting myself and my flaws and my past actions is … Myself. Maybe I have to let go of everything I believed in, up until this moment. Maybe it’s time to take off this mask. All of a sudden, I feel so much warmth. It feels like something I’ve never gotten before. I feel so accepted, even though I haven’t reached the things I wanted. I feel so beautiful, even though I am not perfect. I feel like I am enough, even though I’m lacking so many things. I feel like I am … okay. I am okay the way I am. It’s okay for me to have flaws. I am not the only one who has them. Everybody has flaws. Nobody is perfect. Flaws are allowed from now on. It’s allowed to be imperfect from now on. I feel so fucking beautiful right now. I feel like my flaws are the most beautiful thing about me. And why would I think that I couldn’t make a single mistake? My flaws and my mistakes are what makes me a unique human-being. I want to see it. I want to see the unique beauty of every human-being I meet and I want to show them mine. And if I do so, it will be okay if somebody else won’t like me for that. I will be okay with it. I will be okay. I’ve never felt so much joy. I’ve never felt so much warmth. I’ve never felt so much comfort. I’ve never felt so relieved in my entire life. I want to experience this over and over again and I want others to experience it as well. I want to show them their beauty for them. I want them to experience moments like the one I am experiencing right now. Because, if I am not the only one who is struggling, that means that I am not the only one who needs this kind of warmth and compassion. And I am not the only one who thought he was the center of the earth. Because I am not the chosen one, I am not the most important person on the earth. I am no saint. I am not a perfect robot. I am not the person I thought I had to be. Nobody is. I am just a part of the big picture. Just like everybody else. And it never felt so great to be alive on this planet. From now on, everything will be different. Goodbye perfection, hello imperfection! Hello, beauty. Hello, vulnerability. Hello, mistakes. Hello, humanity. Hello, real me. It’s been a while … At that point I hadn’t realized yet, that this moment was only the beginning of a process that involved suffering through everything I repressed until then. A process full of pain and regrets. In this time, my journal became my best friend …