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‘Infected’ – perfect!!

When I thought of writing an article long back the first thing that came to my mind was what will I write on? What will be the title? Will Google give me a good title? I thought every word in the article must be grammatically correct. I am absolutely not going to write words in short forms as this is my first article. Will I be able to manage writing with clarity? Will I make it interesting? I should write extremely well or else what’s the point writing, Will I approve of my own article and blah blah blah…. These thoughts were just never ending. This is exactly when I found the topic to write on called “Perfection”. If this does not happen none of my articles will ever come to existence.

After nearly two decades of knowing my perfectionist tendencies today I thought enough is enough! Just the mere decision to finally give in at learning to be at peace, being an imperfect person in an imperfect world gave me happiness. I indulged my irrational, dysfunctional desire for perfection and just gave in today. Things suddenly became less complex and easier to handle as I associated a goal to a decision that I was willing to take now but never made an attempt since ages.

Over a period of time Perfection made me not take the decision of writing at all. I just kept on writing incomplete articles and kept deleting and not sharing articles written by me since they didn’t seem perfect to me. I am sure this is what happens to many people like me. We end up not attempting things at all in the process of doing some good, great, excellent, outstanding, perfect job. Sometimes we even overdo perfection and mess it totally.

Some Painters often say,” There is something missing. I think I need to add something more to the art work before I sell the painting”. But most of the times we do not realize that imaginations can’t always get the exact face in reality. There can be things that one has to add or subtract from their imaginations. Creative people often are in love with their own work and therefore treat their work like their babies. Any criticism to their work is not taken in a great way most of the times.

How difficult it is to understand that it is often not the situation which triggers a response but the way we behave in that particular situation. Criticism should not develop a belief that my work should be the best so that no one can ever criticize it. Critics are a way to improvement and the ones who know this deliver better results in future with less pressure.

Lets talk about another profession. If a Plastic Surgeon says, “I will continue with the surgery till I get the exact facial change I am thinking for my patient.”  If there is a surgeon of such thought process and he goes on and on with the surgery to strive perfection, then I hope he mentions these thoughts to his patient before the surgery. This will at least give the patient one chance to just vanish from this horrific experience.

Now-a-days, parents often come up and say, “That my child must know everything.” “I should send my kids to the best school, with best teachers and the best infrastructure.” As parents I see that emotionally feasible. On the other hand, we are putting these infected thoughts from us to them which will lead them to the path of perfection which is never attainable.

So the question here is where do we develop such fallacies from, these fallacious rules to attain Perfection? How did we come to the conclusion that anything that is done needs to display perfection? The answers can be found, as we develop the concept of perfection ourselves.

Over the years we have learnt and re-learnt it that if the world fails to conform to some state of perfection or near perfection, then the world is not the way it absolutely, unconditionally must be, and we should and must not ever have it any other way. This is ingrained in us right from the start.

If you are one of them dealing with ‘the disease’ called Perfection, you should clarify as to why perfection is a disease with a therapist. A therapist will disagree to the absolutistic, must have desire to attain perfection. This self – proclaimed concept not only diverts an individual to give their best in the situation but also sometimes stops one from even attempting it.  This may lead to feeling of guilt about not being able to achieve perfection.

Life can be unfair to a certain extent which is agreeable but in the process of attaining desires we often forget that we are making things miserable for us by having unrealistic goals and unhealthy negative emotions.

6 Comments

  1. Totally agree with you. We are trying so much harder to be perfect that we stop enjoying experience of being normal imperfect beings. Allowing oneself to learn from mistakes will only help us grow better. M also one of infected beings n this article is an eye opener. Great job Anamikaa. Looking forward for more of your blogs.

    Regards,
    Amit

  2. Its a nice enjoyable read…. i could identify with some of the examples myself!

  3. nice blog anamikaa.. true that we r held back in certain situations in a bid to attain perfection.. we’ve to accept our limitations to complete the job..n also accept the limitations of others to save the relations.. Cos the world is perfectly imperfect..

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