"Life is binary. It's zero or one." Then she told him that he had a choice of being happy, or being perfect, and that his desire to be perfect was holding him back from living. His response was he didn't want to be a zero. so he was thinking of it as 'open' rather than zero.
The problem with hearing something that someone else told them is that you are hearing it through their interpretation. I knew what the practitioner was trying to get at though. She wanted him to make a choice to be happily imperfect and get on with it already.
I thought what he had just told me and agreed with him and added, "in electricity, it's not zero and one, it's an O and a --- (solid line if you will) and it means open and not open or closed. Like on your power strips, you have an O and a line, rather than a one. So what if you thought of it as a choice between being open to life, or not being open to life?"
He smiled.
Are we open to receive? Do we meet life with open arms, ready to receive whatever comes, with joyful anticipation, arms up and saying "how fascinating!" or "I wonder what this will bring?" I have another friend that ends everything with, "And have the best day ever!"
I remember when my eldest son was little and he would greet each day with "wake up wake up wake up it's a wonderful day!"
Try embracing the day, today, right now, with that sort of wonder. If there is a traffic jam, take a breath, say "I wonder what this will bring me!" and look about. See the trees, flowers, listen to the words on the song-why in that particular moment did the universe bring you to a still point? And accept it.