Perfection vs Perfectionism

Perfection vs Perfectionism

Perfection. What an enticing and seductive word. Perfection, all crystalline and pure. Who would think that something that seems so lovely could be so very dangerous.

Oh, yeah, I said dangerous.

We are perfect beings at our core, beings of light and love. And this moment is perfect, perfect for where we are in this moment. These things are perfection. And we tend to think of perfection as a positive thing.

But the instant we start to try for perfection, we are doomed. Perfection is a state of being, not an activity.

Doing our best is a wonderful thing. It makes us feel good, we feel satisfied when we’ve done our best. We feel content.

Striving for perfection, on the other hand, can make us crazy. We can end up spending way too much time on a project trying to make it perfect. Most of the time good enough is good enough.

In the olden days, I tried to make things perfectly clean. It took forever, and still they weren’t perfect. I tried to make my skin perfectly smooth, to iron my clothes perfectly, to write the perfect sentence, knit the perfect glove. Sometimes, it would happen right away, sometimes I had to work and work at it.

Kind of like an abusive relationship.

The other part of the equation was that, as I got busier with a second job, and a third (we’ll talk about that another time) I couldn’t spend 5 hours cleaning the kitchen floor. So I stopped. Spending half an hour to iron a shirt; I stopped ironing. I stopped trying to knit fancy things, I stopped writing anything but journal entries.

Stymied. Brought up short. Because I thought that if I couldn’t do it perfectly, what was the point. Oh, I wish I could go back in time and tell me how wrong that was.

Good enough is good enough. Why am I capable?

Hit a lick at a snake. What makes me get it done?

Doing my best is wonderful.  How am I satisfied?

Being a grownup means that I know when to apply good enough, and when to give it my all. This is using positive emotional judgment. It makes my life easier, it leaves me with more energy for other things, including spending time with you.

Being a grownup means that I no longer am striving for perfection when I write you. I get our community in mind, I pull a Creative Questions card, I contemplate it until an idea pops up (don’t you love creativity) and then I write it, read it for typos, and give it to you. I do my best, but I don’t strive for perfection. I’d never get these written if I did.

Loving “good enough” is a giant leap toward our natural life because it lets us relax in our feelings, and then, too, in our bodies.

How have I changed from making myself crazy to exercising my positive emotional judgment?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 09032013