I’m a perfectionist. I used to be really proud of it, too, back when I thought perfect was a healthy, reasonable goal. It isn’t though, really, when we consider how much more time and energy we have to expend on creating perfection.
The need for what I create to be perfect always eats away at the creation itself. If I’m drawing, I’ll erase and redo the lines until the page is torn. If I’m painting, I’ll keep adding and adding and adding until it’s ruined, and the colours and lines are muddied together. If I’m writing an article, just like this one, I’ll edit what I’ve written until I’ve brutally deconstructed my entire idea and there is nothing worthwhile left. I kill my creations in the name of perfection.
It’s almost like there’s an insatiable, starving rat, that’s gnawing through my ideas and creativity as if there’s nothing else to eat.
I can’t recount all that I’ve lost to my deep-seated need for perfection. I can’t count the hours, the artwork, the writing, that I’ve lost trying to make each unique thing perfect. I pour out my heart and etch with my soul, clinging to the hope that the next time I try will be the perfect try, and I’ll finally have something to show for all that I’ve put in.
But that doesn’t happen.
That has never, and will never happen. Because perfect isn’t real. Perfect isn’t something we should place on a pedestal. It’s not a trait we should admire. Perfectionism doesn’t come from the desire to make wonderful or beautiful things. It comes from fear. Fear of failure, fear of mistakes. And my fear to do something badly, to make a mistake, or to fail, has led me to more of each of those experiences than those experiences would have themselves.
If I had just been able to take this step back earlier in my life and see perfection for what it really is, I’d have a thousand more articles published than I do. I’d have painted more, and crafted more, and spent more time enjoying what I’m doing instead of tearing it, and myself, to shreds in the name of some perpetually unattainable goal. If I had just let myself make those mistakes, I would’ve learned so much more from them than my fear of mistakes ever taught me.
At its core, perfect is a perfect excuse. It’s a safe, socially acceptable reason to never, ever put yourself out there and face the inevitable truth that sometimes you make something bad. But we don’t need that excuse. We can knock perfection off that pedestal and learn to be okay with making something imperfect, or simply trying to make something and catastrophically failing at it.
We all create our own narrative, and we can choose to create one that loves the experience of creating, and appreciates whatever the outcome is, instead of one that lingers on an impossible goal. So take a leap into the fear, throw perfection aside, and choose to be okay with making bad things.
