Making Peace With Imperfection

I'm a recovering perfectionist...

There. I said it.

I suppose I owe that statement to some kind of personal insight made a long time ago, as well as finally having come to terms with — and embraced — the fact that I was not only raised by parents who beat "Always do your best!" into my head like a mantra, but who also expected nothing short of their twisted vision of "perfection" to unfold before them, at all times.

It's amazing what we "bring with us" from childhood, even when we feel determined to divest ourselves of all manners of bad habits we're consciously aware of!

The irony in this whole thing is the fact that I am not naturally inclined to strive for perfection. I am was just conditioned that way...

As much as anything, I took it as a way of conducting myself in life for no greater reason than it seemed to offer the path of least resistance.

If you always meet — and exceed — the expectations of others (and yourself, occasionally) you don't have to deal with such things as complaints and disappointment... and that just makes for smooth sailing...

Doesn't it...?

The problem with pleasing everyone is that everyone loves you... except YOURSELF...

I got in a bit of a "twitter fight" (I still can't get myself to call it X) with a somewhat prominent psychologist/influencer a while back over the issue of people pleasing being a manifestation of neglect in childhood leading to low self-esteem later in life.

I called bullshit on her and off we went...

If you get screamed at for not "pleasing" and being perfect when you're a child, it's not "neglect," it's actually very active participation and the people pleasing is merely a survival response, not a cry for attention.

Frankly, having had less attention would have been OK! Please don't yell at me...

Back to the twitter fight, everything settled peacefully enough, once we circled back to "cognitive bias" and visited the reality that her specialty was recovery from neglect... and "when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

The thing about perfectionism is that it consumes vast amounts of both time and energy.

Some years ago, I finally came to realize that there's a diminishing marginal returns situation going on there... and the reality of this world dictates that almost nobody notices the difference between "98% perfect" and "100% perfect," anyway.

And that's the "Imperfection" I have made peace with.

And it has been very freeing to no longer agonize over projects and pieces of writing to the point where they never actually get finished because there are always reasons why they are "not ready" and "not good enough" to set free in the world.

Oddly enough, the "seeds" for this acceptance was sown all the way back in one of my creative writing courses at University, in which the professor — a published author — pointed out that if you go to your local bookstore, only somewhere between 1-2% of what graces the shelves there might be considered to be of "literature quality."

Everything else is just in basic functionally understandable working order, and no more.

In a sense the proverbial "straw" that broke my perfectionistic camel's back was the realization that being perfect does little in the way of guaranteeing success.

The world still turns...

I suppose we have to ask ourselves who it is we're trying to impress. And why we're trying to impress them.

The only version of impressing that really feels meaningful is when you love someone and they inspire you to be a better version of yourself. Not a version that's created to please them, but a version that pleases them simply because it also pleases you.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!

How about you? Have you ever been called a perfectionist? Do you actually HAVE perfectionistic tendencies? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.04.04 00:29 PDT
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