"Perfect"

Perfectionists strike me as strange.

I understand not wanting to half-ass anything, I do my best never to half-ass the things that I do.

"if your going to do it, do it right”.

But if someone is so afraid of not doing something “perfectly" then they might not end up starting at all.

“perfect” - as a concept - doesn't exist.

Something can always be improved.

It can always be better.

"perfection” was just a concept we made up.

Yet people waste their lives on it.

Trial and error is the way of the world.

No one succeeds on the first try. and no one is perfect, because perfect doesn’t exist.

You wouldn’t tell Picasso that his painting could use a bit more blue in the corner, would you?

Why do people expect perfection in the first place?

I think it has to do with our education system. As our brains develop we are over and over “tested” on various subjects. We are told that you need to do well on these tests so you should try to get everything right. We are ingrained with the belief that 100% success is possible, because on a test, it is.

This doesn’t make sense in the real world though does it?

In the real world we don't have percentage grade tests. We have pass or fail. We have bad products and good products.

In the real world you can’t get everything right all the time, you’re going to make mistakes, but it’s not a test, so you can come back from those mistakes to reiterate and learn from them.

I think this striving for perfection in our society is detrimental to millions of peoples mental health. Whether that perfection comes in the form of professional, personal or physical.

How many people have suffered burnout from trying to treat themselves as robots that work 24/7 without relaxation?
How many people have spent day in and day out overthinking every aspect of their relationships, leading to anxiety and trust issues?
How many people have tortured themselves, comparing their bodies to those online?

Why is it that through all the instability of life, people need to take one thing in their power and make it as perfect as possible, just to have some semblance of control.

Why is it that people try to be “perfect" when surely no one believes that anyone else is perfect. No one that is alive, or has ever lived is or ever will be perfect, not Bill Gates, not Albert Einstein, not even our moms.

Who but ourselves gets to decide whats perfect or imperfect?

What would happen if we threw away all of the pretext? If we started our internal ideas of perfection from scratch.

If we looked upon the worlds imperfections as assets not issues. what if we:

Leant into the unstability.
Smiled at the somewhat wonky.
Looked curiously upon the slightest differences or discomfort.

Instead of labeling it. We accepted it for what it was.

Every single imperfection is only an imperfection because you have labelled it as such.

Improvement>perfection

If being perfect is outside of your control, stop trying to be perfect. Focus on what Is in your control. Choose to be better. You can always control improvement.

Everything comes in waves

Everything in life comes in waves, you will have good days, you will have bad days, and some days will just be okay.

These waves are what make up life. There is no escaping the waves but that doesn't mean you can't move the waves.

You can make the high ends higher and the low ends not so low...slowly.

You cannot have a great day everyday, or else none of them would be great days.

Great days are only great because there are not-so-great days that we can compare them to.

Remember the rule of thirds

If you are chasing a big goal you should feel good 1/3 of the time, just okay 1/3 of the time and crappy 1/3 of the time.

If the average of your days is leaning towards more good days than crappy, then it might be time to kick your efforts into a higher gear. If you are having more crappy days than good days on average it might be a sign of burnout and time to take a step back.

Final thoughts

Ultimately, the pursuit of perfection is an endless and potentially unhealthy path. Rather than striving for some arbitrary ideal, we can choose to focus on continuous improvement - getting 1% better each day. Embracing imperfection means accepting failures and setbacks as necessary parts of progress. Letting go of unrealistic expectations, we can enjoy life's messiness. The waves will keep on coming, so let's ride them rather than fight them.

So strive not for perfection but for the courage to persevere, for the resilience to recover, and for the wisdom to know that the real goal is not some final ideal.