“Normal people don’t do everything perfectly.”

From: Madness: A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacher:

“See, the thing is, you’ve got this idea of normal that’s not normal. Normal people don’t do everything perfectly. You don’t have to do everything perfectly to be normal. To be normal, you’ve got to kind of relax and let some things go. Your problem is that you’re so used to being in crisis that your whole perception of yourself is as a fuckup, a permanent fuckup, never someone who gets to not be a fuckup, so you have to torture yourself and hate yourself just to be as good as everyone else. You’re having a hard time realizing that you’re not a fuckup anymore. You’re entering into a whole different period of your life where you are normal. And you’re having a hard time getting used to it.”

                I gaze out the window. “But if you’re not trying to be perfect, then how do you know if you’re doing things right?”

                “There is no right,” she says. “There’s the best you can do. And that’s fine. That’s normal.”

                “The best I can do is sometimes completely fail,” I say.

                She shrugs. “Fine,” she says. “The rest of us do it all the time.”