The Insidious Side of Perfectionism
My little sister has a lot going for her. She’s model beautiful, thin, smart, socially aware, vegan (so much commitment required to do this – I know because I’m vegan as well when I dine with her, which is a fair bit), loves animals and children, hates injustice and generally wants to make the world a better place and herself a better person. All of this is more amazing when you find out she suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis (at the age of twenty, mind you), clinical depression, borderline personality disorder, endometriosis and a multitude of allergies. But she still managed to finish Year 12, complete a Certificate IV in Youth Work and is now studying a Bachelor of Social Work with aspirations of eventually doing a master’s degree.
She’s also a perfectionist. I shouldn’t be surprised it runs in the family since I’m a perfectionist, too, although our nineteen-year age gap has given me the time she hasn’t had yet to work through my perfectionism and settle on a more reasonable goal of extremely good. Mostly I meet that goal; sometimes no matter how hard I work, I don’t. Results can range from good, just okay, not good and complete failure, depending on what it is I’m doing. (Housework is a complete failure more often than not; I just can’t be bothered.)
In the couple of years since she finished secondary school and began her tertiary studies, I’ve acted as both an unofficial sounding board and official paid tutor (thanks, Mum) to help her out. University hasn’t always been the easiest of things for her (she has actually had to switch twice, the first time because the campus wasn’t disability friendly, meaning she had trouble getting around, and the second time because the compulsory work placements were only offered on a full-time basis, which her disability prevented her from being able to undertake). She’s also a self-doubter. If she can’t comprehend something, she assumes it must be because she’s not smart enough to. Often it’s because her lecturers and tutors aren’t teaching well but the self-doubt always means her default position is to assume there’s something wrong with her. A chat with me or Mum or our other sister with a PhD or her boyfriend usually gets her to a place of understanding and the ability to move forward.
At our most recent meeting, however, when she was struggling with an essay question that I considered poorly written and difficult to interpret (so it was hardly surprising that she was struggling), she said this: “I’d rather not submit anything and just fail than submit something that isn’t perfect.”
I was disturbed. Firstly, because it was like having a mirror of my own ridiculously perfection-obsessed twenty-year-old self pointed straight at me. And secondly, because preferring not trying and failing completely to trying and achieving something – however imperfect – is a dangerous route to take. The sooner everyone can realise that perfection is an impossible goal, the happier their lives will be. Unfortunately, it is a process. You can be told over and over – and I was, frequently – about the impossibility of it but it is something that must be learned, not simply accepted and it can take years. It took me at least ten, probably closer to fifteen.
The difference between us, though, was that I was always willing to have a go. I struggled in my first year of university, too. I seriously considered dropping out in the first semester. I was only seventeen and although I loved learning and thought I was intellectually capable enough, I didn’t have the emotional maturity that would have made that transition from high school to university a bit easier. But I didn’t drop out. I stayed. I pushed through. I studied a bunch of subjects that sounded interesting when I signed up but suffered from boring content delivered badly by unengaged lecturers and tutors. My grades often reflected that. But eventually I stumbled into American history, fell in love, finished with a high distinction average in that major and was offered the chance to do honours. I declined and simply graduated with my bachelor’s degree without honours because I’d already figured out that the underlying problem was the fact that I wasn’t studying writing and had enrolled in a writing and editing course somewhere else.
There are plenty of people more famous than me and my little sister (which is to say actually famous) who failed time and time again before eventually succeeding. Thomas Edison is probably the most famous example of all. Accounts differ about the number of failures he had – 1,000, 2,000, 10,000 – while attempting to perfect the light bulb but his response to these suggested failures is reported pretty consistently: he didn’t fail; he just figured out 1,000 [or 2,000 or 10,000] ways not to make a light bulb. Another way it has been put: the process for developing the light bulb had 1,000 [or 2,000 or 10,000] steps.
Imagine if Thomas Edison had decided to give up after the tenth failure. Imagine if he’d decided not to try at all because he couldn’t do it perfectly the first time around. We would have been sitting around reading by candlelight for a lot longer than we did. If it were necessary now rather than just nostalgic, we’d have missed out on an awful lot.
That’s what I hope my little sister will be able to see, the large number of things that she’d be missing out on if she doesn’t give it a go, whatever “it” is. Despite her self-doubt, all of her assignments so far have come back with high distinction grades of 90% or higher. No, it’s not perfection but it’s pretty damn good. It’s certainly a lot better than many other students can claim. And if she considers that as the basis for improvement, then she’s going to get very close to excellence.
It’s a good lesson for us all. We can allow ourselves to be side-tracked or overwhelmed by the unattainable pursuit of whatever it is we wish we were able to do perfectly or we can give it a red hot go regardless and see where it takes us. It might be even more wonderful than the tediousness of perfection.
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Happy new year! May it be full of fun and happiness and reaching for the stars… so long as you realise you’ll always be a few fingertips shy of that stars goal and that reaching for the moon might be just as good.
