A while ago, I received this message from a friend:
“Terry, when I told you about the pressure my daughter was under to maintain A’s into get into a top tier university, you quoted Voltaire; ‘Perfection is the enemy of the good.” Remember? Well, although she didn’t get into her first choice, she was accepted into a top college and is about to graduate with honors. You may want to republish the “Disease of perfection” article you sent me because there are lots of pressures on students today to get into colleges of their choice, and some feel like failures if they don’t.”
I thanked her and put her request on the back burner until last week when my granddaughter texted me her third quarter high school grades – seven A’s, and one B+. Interestingly, she lowered her voice into what seemed like an apology for getting a B+! Well, here we go again with this ever nagging “I must be perfect” nonsense.
Now before we delve into the toll that the burden of perfection takes on us, don’t get me wrong, we expected nothing short of perfection with the recent enormously successful launch and return of the Artemis II spacecraft, did we not?
And wait, is it not unreasonable to expect perfection – or pretty damn near – from an airline pilot, heart or brain surgeon? Point being is that there are reasonable expectations to want perfection in some aspects of our lives, obviously those with life-or-death implications for example. However, as emailer requested, I’ve retrieved and updated the “The disease of perfection” article she referenced in its entirety.
Here it is:
How about a show of hands from those of you out there who consider yourselves perfect? Let’s see now many. Interesting. Not a single hand went up. Maybe you didn’t hear me right, so I’ll kick the volume up, capitalize and repeat the question; HOW ABOUT A SHOW OF HANDS FROM THOSE OF YOU WHO CONSIDER YOURSELVES PERFECT?
Humm, still no hands. Which suits me just fine because your no show of hands makes a strong case for my main point … nobody’s perfect (including a deeply flawed yours truly!)
Now while you may be wondering if I’ve gone bonkers, I’ll again say this: I’m all for perfection in many aspects in life and my guess is that so are you. But I’m not for absolute perfection in every aspect of life or in every person. That’s impossible, a recipe for stress, high blood pressure, drug abuse, domestic violence and troubled teenagers. I could go on, but you get my drift.
So why on Earth am I ranting about “perfection” of all things you ask? What triggered this was a post by Canadian Dan Pearce. Here are excerpts from his post:
“There’s a serious pandemic of ‘Perfection’ spreading, and it needs to stop. It is a sickness that I’ve been trying to put into words for years without much success. It is a sickness that I’ve personally struggled with, one that at times has left me in dark corners and hating myself. ‘Perfection’ infects every corner of society, our schools, neighborhoods and workplaces. We live in communities where people feel unconquerable amounts of pressure to always appear perfectly happy, perfectly functional and perfectly figured. ‘Perfect’ is a hideous monster with a really beautiful face.”
He listed the following examples from in his post. Evidence of the disease of perfection is…
… a daughter with an eating disorder who keeps it hidden for years because she doesn’t want to be the first among her family and friends to be imperfect.
… a couple drowning in debt but will still agree to that cruise with their friends because the words, “we don’t have the money” are impossible ones to push across their lips.
… a man feeling like a smaller man because his neighbor just pulled in with a new boat.
… a child hating herself because the boys at school call her fat and when she goes home she tells her mom that school was fine.
… a wife who feels trapped in a marriage to a lazy, angry, small man but at soccer practice tells the other wives how wonderful her marriage is.
… a man who everyone heralds as perfect, but inside he’s screaming to be the faulty human being that he knows he always has been.
… a dad hating himself because he can’t give his kids what other dads do and then hating himself further because he takes his self-loathing out on his kids behind closed doors.
… a man who loathes himself for feeling unwanted attraction to other men.
… a mom hating herself because she sees others as the perfect mother, the perfect wife and does not see herself that way.
So how do we exorcise the demon of “Perfection?” Advises Pearce: “Be real. Embrace that you have weaknesses. Everyone does. Embrace that you have things about you that you cannot control.”
Here’s my list of thoughts that could help free you from the trappings of the disease to please. You are not the only one who…
… fears public speaking or writing because you may not speak or write “perfect” English.
… has questions about your religion.
…hates being stared at in public because you’re overweight.
… have regrets about who you voted for in the last election.
… stares in the mirror and hates some aspect of your body.
… pretends that you’re in a job you like.
… struggles with your sexual identity or orientation.
… has a troubled child who has not lived up to his/her full potential.
…who struggles with grasping new technologies.
…who, as an adult, feels guilty about having to live at home with aging parents.
…feels guilty about having frequent lapses into forgetfulness.
… feels embarrassed about the possibility that your forefathers once owned slaves.
Truth is that our need to please and present ourselves as perfect can make us smile when smiling is the last thing we want to do and be with and people and go to places we’d rather not go.
Now the undeniable truth is that our perfection frenzy is a boon and goldmine for the perfection industry, among them beauty salons, hair dyes, wigs and eyelash merchants, gyms for perfect bodies, dental offices for perfect teeth and slick peddlers of weight loss plans, diet pills, breast implants, etc. Long story short, the disease of perfection is a billion-dollar business with questionable and, as best, temporary results.
So just how do we exorcise ourselves from the demon of “perfection?”
Well, the suggestion here is that we go eyeball to eyeball with the face in the mirror and say to him/her enough is enough. The days of my trying to live up to someone else’s definition of ‘perfection’ are behind me, henceforth and forevermore.
I’m me, I’m free and I’m unabashedly proud of my every strand of gray hair, ounce of fat, broken but beautiful accent, age, belief or nonbelief, marital status, disability, profession of choice and educational background. Yes, I have weaknesses, I’m not perfect, never have been, never will be, and won’t destroy myself trying to be.
And I’m going to take – no, excuse me, rip – off the shackles of the insane disease to please that I may have put on those around me, my offspring, peers and subordinates alike, so that they can join me in being themselves, all that they can be in a world made up entirely of imperfect people.
Let’s commit ourselves to working hard every day to unlearn and interrupt this toxic concept of perfection because it’s hurting yourself and others in ways that you may not realize, leaving people hiding in plain sight and suffering in silence.
So, I’ll end by raising this question again: How many of you consider yourselves “imperfect” people? Ah… great…thanks.. Welcome to the ranks of the majority (and the B+ brigade).
Poet Oscar Wilde said it best: “Be yourself because everyone else is already taken.”
Terry Howard is an award-winning writer, a contributing writer with the Chattanooga News Chronicle, The American Diversity Report, The Douglas County Sentinel, TheBlackmarket.com, recipient of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Award, and third place winner of the Georgia Press Award.
