Last month at this time my grandmother said something that she coincidentally just said to me when I was out to dinner with her last night. The first time she said it was right after my grandfather’s funeral and she was spending the night. My parents went out to pick up my dogs from doggie day care and after she and I changed, we sat in the living room under blankets talking for a while.

“None of us are perfect, otherwise it wouldn’t be a real world” were the words my grandmother said out loud to herself.

And last night when I was out for my mom’s birthday, she said those words again and they have really been in my head today.

The truth of the matter is, we can all say no one is perfect. We can all say that everyone makes mistakes. But we need to really take the time to understand and listen to our family and close friends. We may not like everything (or many) things about some of the people in our lives but they are the way they are for a reason. They do or don’t act a certain way because of circumstances in their lives. We are ALL who we are because of the situations we have either been in or had to overcome.

I will be honest – there are some people in my life who are hard for me to handle at this moment. That isn’t really an earth shattering secret. I am sure every single one of us has at least one person in our lives that we have a little difficulty dealing with for whatever reason at certain times. It may be something that they are doing, or it may be the time in our lives. It doesn’t matter.

All that matters is that we recognize it, and realize that no one is perfect. We all have baggage of some sort. We all have issues. We all have problems. We all have fears. We all have anxieties. We all have hopes. We are all just imperfect people trying to coexist in an imperfect world.

The easier we can make it on one another the better. The more understanding, the more compassion, and the more patience we can throw each other the smoother life will be for all of us.