In the personal development community, perfection has become a dirty word. Experts and non-experts alike constantly tout how impossible perfection is. But if we are all limited by our own perceptions then why can’t perfection be possible? Your life may not be perfect to your next door neighbor, but it’s perfect to you. Long story short: one person’s idea of perfect is another person’s imperfect. Period.
Perfectionism has a negative connotation for two reasons. The first is that society has distorted the meaning of perfect. Society’s version of perfect is a standardized vision. It’s created to be a one-size-fits-all vision. It also defines perfection externally. Secondly, people suck at accurately predicting the future.
Many of us may subscribe to society’s idea of perfect. We attach ourselves to this definition so much that we don’t even bother to define what’s perfect to us, as individuals. It’s easier to see someone else’s version of perfect and ask for specific directions to get there in order to avoid making mistakes. A lot of times we get so scared of not following these directions to a tee that we don’t do anything at all. If we do manage to achieve what we perceive to be society’s definition of perfect (at least externally), we find out it’s not perfect at all.
This brings me to my second point about people’s pathetic psychic skills. We envision how something should be, no matter how unrealistic that vision is. When we fail to live up to that vision we feel let down. We begin to believe the world will never be perfect. This is an unfair assumption because we are basing perfection off of a dream, frequently someone else’s dream.
Personally, I think we spend too much time trying to define perfect. Perfection can’t be defined. It can’t be planned. Some people end up “finding” perfection by accident: they realize that everything has been perfect all along.
I reject the notion that perfection is static. It’s 100% dynamic and it’s 100% internal.
Perfection is a journey, not an end point. People say practice makes perfect, but I say that practice IS perfection. It’s all about making mistakes. It’s all about the bad days just as much as it is about the good days. It’s all about the big losses as much as it is about the big wins. It’s all about doubt and confidence. Perfection is about your experiences that specifically make you who you are. In other words, you are perfection and perfection is you.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
perfection is an opinion…a dream…that makes pefect sense….but I guess the chase of a dream can sometimes be better than the dream itself.
In other words, if a person sets high expectations for themselves, even if they never fully attain them, pushing themselves to go beyond what they orignall thought they could do will probably help them reach higher levels in life, not not perfection.
So the persuit of self-defined perfection (althought it can never really be 100% defined) is thus the closest you can get to perfection.
Even when it comes to self-defined perfection, it is possible to get so caught up in the 'perfection' part that you miss the whole point and you miss all the little things in life. You look back and wonder if all that internal work 24/7 was really worth it. I just feel that perfection isn't about attaining all that is good; rather it is the good, the bad, and the ugly together in the right mix (depending on the individual). Because good can't exist without bad and vice versa.
For me, perfection is basically about understanding myself for who I am, flaws and all, and working with (or around) what I got, not necessarily trying to “correct” myself.
SO I wonder in a quest for self development, how can you tell which flaws you should just accept as a part of who you are and which one's should you keep trying to get rid of or improve. Perfection can also be described as the best you can be but whose to say which flaws are acceptale and which are not?