MENTAL HEALTH
You Should Read This if You’re Chasing Perfection
There are times when imperfection is perfection
Christmas always reminds me life isn’t perfect. It started as a kid when my family would go to a Christmas tree farm to choose a Douglas Fir we could all agree on. Wait, I meant we’d choose the one my mom wanted.
She had six kids, so when she found a promising tree, she would plant one of us there to call dibs while she wandered off to see if there was a better one elsewhere. Every year, the choice was a compromise. Did she want the tree with the bald spot she could turn to face the wall or the one missing a bottom branch?
Ultimately, it didn’t matter since any tree we took home was going to be covered with tinsel and cherished ornaments, imperfections be damned. It’s even fun to look at old pictures and reminisce about the tree’s troubles in any given year.
This is when I learned that perfection doesn’t matter as much as my perfectionist brain thinks it should.
It doesn’t help that our brains love symmetry, which feels like perfection. While my wife has never been diagnosed with OCD, there are times when she needs to have things just so. This was put to the test recently when we discovered our new backyard deck being built doesn’t…
