#perfectionis

Sometimes you aren’t going to enjoy your project. Sometimes you aren’t going to like the finished product. Sometimes, it’s not going to live up to your standards of a perfect A+ submission.

But sometimes, your deadline won’t allow for that  Sometimes your professor won't allow for that and Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in a day to allow for that perfect A+ submission.

Life goes on.  Your employers won’t look at your grade in your second semester ethics class, they’ll look at your diploma, and they’ll look at who you are as a person.  So don’t panic if you think it’s not your best work.

It’s not always going to be,

Soundtrack: Jon Brion - Phone Call It dawned on me slowly over the course of a week. All this energy I spend on going against what comes naturally is energy wasted. All this time I spent beating myself up for not being clean, organized and able to compartmentalize my emotions effectively, is time I could have spent on activities that make me feel better or result in accomplishments that matter to me. The realization that willing myself into changing the core of who I am as a person doesn’t work, freed me. The extent of my willpower is such that it can be detrimental to my well-being. In the past, I’ve willed myself into unhealthy weight loss, a degree I’d sworn I’d never sign up for, a driving course even though I’m terrified of driving, toxic relationships. All of these I've since given up. I used to have “Quitting is not an option” as my Facebook bio for years, such a self-destructive way of thinking... Quitting is not an option if you want to get burned out. Quitting is not an option if you want to please everybody but yourself. Quitting is not an option if you want to live a life that’s not yours. If you want to push aside your aspirations, your vision of who you want to be and what you want to do.

I wish I knew more big words but I guess that this is just not who I am. I value simplicity and imperfection in art and in people. It’s my environmental programming that taught me to go against this and strive to be more. I was held to a higher standard than most people I know, and I’m grateful for that to an extent, though I see how the internalization of said standard is constricting me. For years, my thought process went as follows: “I need to improve non-stop for years, until I become the best version of myself I could be. Then, maybe I'll deserve to have a life.” I wanted to check all the boxes until I realized I’d boxed myself into a non-life of my own making.

“I want to become more practical and put-together.

Granted, but you’ve lost your Self.”

I read that you have to kill parts of yourself to grow. I’d inadvertently killed my creative, spontaneous and at times impulsive Self. I lost my passion for art, both consuming and creating it. I came to think that hobbies are a waste of time. Taking up more practical hobbies resulted in more unhappiness because practicality wasn’t what I’d wanted; it was what I thought I’d wanted. I’d beat myself up for being inconsistent with my hobbies and not getting any better at them, until I realized said hobbies were another self-imposed should. Another box I “had” to check. Another component of the person I “ought to” be.

‘The mature heart is not perfectionist: it rests in the compassion of our being instead of the ideals of the mind. Nonidealistic spirituality does not seek a perfect world; it does not seek to perfect ourselves, our bodies, our personalities. It is not romantic about teachers or enlightenment based on images of the immense purity of some special being out there. Thus, it does not seek to gain or attain in spiritual life, but only to love and be free...

Mature spirituality is not based on seeking perfection, on achieving some imaginary sense of purity. It is based on the capacity to let go and to love, to open the heart to all that is. Without ideals, the heart can turn the suffering and imperfections we encounter into the path of compassion. In this nonidealistic practice, the divine can shine through even in acts of ignorance and fear, inviting us to wonder at the mystery of all that is. In this there is no judgment and no blame, for we seek not to perfect the world but to perfect our love for what is on this earth.’