Obsession with perfection
I tend to have this weird obsession with perfection. It’s been about 3 years since I got aware of it. Most things I get aware of seem to drop off within a couple of months. But this one seems to be a particularly clingy mental habit. A bit too hardwired into my mental makeup I suspect.
I remember clearly when I first became aware of this need for perfection. At about the same time I’d also become aware of my constant need to just impress the pants off everyone I interacted with. That last one dropped off very fast once I started seeing it crop up again and again in my behaviour. I didn’t even have to “do” anything about it. Just noticed it every time it happened and smiled to myself. Kind of like, “Here I go again! What insanity!”. Over a period of time that pattern lost its hold on me and just stop happening.
With perfection something seems different.
There seems to be this quality of doubting whether I would be accepted amongst my loved ones if I’m not driving myself crazy doing everything as perfectly as I know how to. Dotting the ‘i’s, crossing the ’t’s, and being just Mr. Good Boy, all the time. Part of it seems like a learned behaviour from parents ( looking at you Mommy dear!). Part of it is self imposed and nurtured with great dedication and care from childhood.
What’s interesting is, that more than a thought process, it’s a feeling. A feeling of measuring my own self worth. Where the brain is measuring the quality of what has happened out of my hands, and is being that stern voice inside my head telling me whether I’ve been ‘good’ or not. At one level it even feels like it’s sincerity gone out of hand. The sincerity of a child who wanted to make others happy around him. Make sure that whoever it was around that he loved and cared for, was smiling along with him. Sensitive to their needs, and their minds…and not unwilling to take responsibility for even their unreasonable demands, or stress vented unfairly at them. Always ready to say, “Yes, I’ll make it my business to do what I can to make it nicer for them”.
But over time, without a balancing force, even this sincerity can backfire.
Over time it turns into taking responsibility for too much. Holding oneself responsible to standards of perfect behaviour, nearly impossible to attain. To obsessing so much over every little detail and behaviour that you tend to develop a tunnel vision. Where the eyes are so intently fixed on doing some one job at hand so perfectly, you end up ignoring some other responsibility that you’ve taken, and risk displeasing someone else. But unwilling to say that no, I’m demanding too much of myself, pile on guilt and even more self reprobation.
It quickly turns into a negative spiral hard to get out of.
Your own sincerity tightening the vice around your neck. Where you can neither drop anything. Nor shout back. And the only instinct is to demand more of yourself.
I’ve lived that life. I’ve tried to do more and more perfectly. Only to find everything turning out more and more imperfectly. Trying to keep all the balls in the air perfectly….only to find at most one ball decently up in the air, even as others would end up rolling at my feet.
Then I learnt the one thing that I had not been taught.
Surrender
I was taught goal setting.
Picked up being ambitious from social cues.
Being responsible from my parents.
Unflinching dedication from my mother.
Being methodical from my father.
To dream big from my many role models. Stories of grand victories resulting from back breaking toil, from the many many books — fictional and reality based.
But nobody taught me to do all that, without being the doer. To be hollow and empty inside, even as you run hard, and play strong.
And to not take it all too seriously.
As a kid I could maybe have laid the blame at others feet — for everyone around who was just too serious about everything.
But as an adult, the responsibility is now mine.
To play for perfection. But without taking it too seriously. Without taking myself too seriously. To not adopt whatever attitudes others have subconsciously adopted. To not think that unless I’m measuring up to other people’s scales, I have no worth.
No more!
I’ve played that game long enough. And there is no perfect person that I can become, that will be acceptable to everyone.
I can only be perfectly me.
Some will like me. Some will dislike me. I will make some correct assumptions. Some wrong ones. Some dumb mistakes. Some awesome strokes of the brush too!
Surrendering it all ultimately, to the unknown. To the Divine. Play my role as I well as I can, fade into the mists of time one day…
Till then, I’ll be me. That’s more than enough.
