My Gen X Playlist: Perfect – Pink

I love bookstores. With the advent of the internet, brick and mortar bookstores are slowly disappearing. I’m fortunate a brand new Barnes and Noble opened up not too far from me. There is just something about walking into a book store and perusing the shelves. You can’t get that same feeling when shopping online.

I don’t want to admit I was spending time in the self-help section, but just between us friends, I was. B&N politely renamed the section Personal Growth. Smart marketing. Swapping out those two words reduced the stigma and made me feel less embarrassed and crazy. Thank you, B&N.

With tilted head, I read the spined book titles. My attention span can be short, so my eyes were doing a quick scan to see if anything jumped out at me. Of course, the F-bomb will always catch my attention. There was a series of books dedicated to the art of not giving a fuck. I was amused and skeptical at the same time. I read the intro to a few of the books and found myself nodding as I read. Hey, the author may be on to something here. I put the books back on the shelf instead of heading to the check out line. I have this habit of buying books that end up collecting dust. It’s led me to marinate on the book before buying it. Maybe I’ll be back to get it another day.

Last thought: Not too far away from these don’t give a fuck books was a collection of Chicken Soup for the Soul. That made me chuckle. What strange bedfellows. New school versus old school. My, how things have changed.

Pink released Fucking Perfect in 2010. In this live version from the Howard Stern Show, Pink explains the inspiration behind the song.

We have this idea of perfect and I think the messiness, that’s the perfection. And the mistakes and the resiliency of starting over.

That’s a new take for me – embracing the messiness. When you think about it, the embrace allows for imperfection at the get go. I’ve learned long ago that perfection is a tough bar to hold. I can always find something not quite right, especially when I’m scorecarding myself. It’s too easy staying inside my head, doom scrolling my life. And the question you have to ask, is this really necessary? I think I’d rather pair the author’s message with Pink’s and embrace the F-bomb in both, instead.

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For a complete playlist, please click here.

For the Spotify playlist, please click here.

Made a wrong turn once or twice
Dug my way out, blood and fire
Bad decisions, that's alright
Welcome to my silly life

Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood
Miss No-Way-It's-All-Good
It didn't slow me down
Mistaken, always second guessing
Underestimated, look, I'm still around

Pretty, pretty, please, don't you ever, ever feel
Like you're less than fucking perfect
Pretty, pretty, please, if you ever, ever feel
Like you're nothing. You're fucking perfect to me

You're so mean, you're so mean when you talk, when you talk
About yourself. You were wrong
Change the voices, change the voices in your head, in your head
Make them like you instead

So complicated
Look how we all make it
Filled with so much hatred
Such a tired game
It's enough, I've done all I can think of
Chased down all my demons
I've seen you do the same
Oh, oh

Pretty, pretty, please, don't you ever, ever feel
Like you're less than fucking perfect
Pretty, pretty, please, if you ever, ever feel
Like you're nothing. You're fucking perfect to me

The whole world's scared, so I swallow the fear
The only thing I should be drinking is an ice-cold beer
So cool in lying and we try, try, try but we try too hard
And it's a waste of my time
Done looking for the critics, 'cause they're everywhere
They don't like my jeans, they don't get my hair
Exchange ourselves and we do it all the time
Why do we do that, why do I do that, why do I do that?

Yeah! Oh!
Oh, pretty, pretty, pretty

Pretty, pretty, please, don't you ever, ever feel
Like you're less than fucking perfect
Pretty, pretty, please, if you ever, ever feel
Like you're nothing. You're fucking perfect to me
You're perfect, you're perfect
Pretty, pretty, please, if you ever, ever feel
Like you're nothing. You're fucking perfect to me