Samsara of Perfectionism — Part 1
Perfectionism is a word that spans its meaning across various dimensions of human behavior. For example, some people skip sleep to create a perfect piece of work just to meet their own satisfaction or due to fear of failing to meet people’s expectations. Such individuals are facing a perfectionism issue related to work and success. In other examples, some people may have excessive concern about their attire and spend too much time ensuring that it is perfect before going out to meet with others. Some individuals value certain ethics, such as unselfishness, so much that they unrealistically try to please everyone.
It seems most of us are perfectionists in some way or another. In essence, we each hold dear some idealistic values, are hard on ourselves in regard to these values, and are likely to invalidate people’s (including our own and others’) worth if they express signs that defy the validity of such ideals.
Nowsaday, we limit the scope of perfectionism and treat it as a specific kind of mental health issue. In this article, we will explore its relation to ancient beliefs, suggesting that it may not only be a specific mental health issue but also a root of the entire suffering everyone encounters.
The Map and Navigation
In modern psychology, perfectionism can be a root cause of many mental health issues such as procrastination, anxiety, social avoidance, addiction, and depression. Some people suffer greatly from it and find themselves trapped in a kind of misery cycle, failing to control their lives. A well-known modern method to help overcome perfectionism is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which involves helping the patient gain awareness of the cycle of behaviors by explicitly drawing it and using it as a map so that the patient can “navigate” their behaviors consciously.
Having a map is key to breaking free from a maze. Ancient people knew this very well and had already created a wonderful map that surprisingly fits and is very useful to “navigate” the spiritual world of a perfectionist and find the way out — the Map of the Samsara Wheel or Bhavacakra, the Wheel of Becoming.
Traditionally, it is said to be a belief in reincarnation. It presents the idea that we, as spiritual entities, have gone through many cycles of death and rebirth throughout six different realms: God, Demon, Human, Animal, Ghost, and Hell. Though it may seem like a fantasy, the idea has many details and patterns that hint at the underlying philosophy. It is common nowadays to interpret the six realms with modern psychological traits among which a person needs to “navigate” through life.
Let’s understand how this map works through the example life of Jackie, a 30-year-old perfectionist salaryman.
Demon Realm
Jackie was born in the demon realm, meaning he was raised in an environment that constantly tested and judged him, carving a desire to become a god and be praised onto his soul. He, therefore, survived by wearing the mask of a god and strived by any means to show people that he is excellent.
In the Map of Samsara, he was in the upper-right realm. In general, a demon seeks to become a god by achieving some kind of ideal. In Jackie’s case, it is the ideal of being academically excellent and successful in life.
A demon is highly attached to an ideal. This attachment is so strong that they are willing to risk their well-being for it. For example, they can skip sleep to create a perfect piece of work just so everyone will praise them.
A demon usually has several mental issues such as:
- Imposter Syndrome — Fear of being exposed as incapable.
- Paranoia — Fear of being judged and failing to meet people’s expectations.
- All-In Syndrome — Excessively trading achievement in the ideal over their own well-being. Willing to risk anything to prove the ideal, which in turn causes time management and prioritization problems.
- Envy — Comparing oneself to others and trying to invalidate their worth as a coping mechanism to retain self-worth.
A demon’s desire to become a god goes against the current of nature, as the path to the god realm is only laid out for those who cultivate their discipline enough — the human.
As it is the rule of nature that water falls from high to low, and mountains are destined to collapse, “the current of reality” blows in the direction that brings the dreamer to awakening, the faker to realization, and the ideal fixation to the “axis of reality” — entering the animal realm.
Animal Realm
Jackie was blown into this realm by the cycle of behaviors that manifest as a sequence of procrastination, anxiety, and avoidance.
Procrastination is a form of realization that the ideal is increasingly out of reach. The ideal is the source of motivation for demons. When losing it, a demon becomes an animal that constantly seeks stimuli to move on.
Procrastination is indecisiveness resulting from our attachment to the ideal. We cannot achieve the ideal but don’t want to lose it, thus becoming frozen. We freeze ourselves, but the current of reality never freezes. An inherent heat develops in our mind and becomes the so-called “anxiety”; it is the energy that tries to unfreeze us.
We then have two choices: one is to put off the god mask and admit to the world that we are incapable so the world can lower their expectations of us; the other choice is to try to defy reality. Avoidance is a quirky solution to defy reality. We strive to become a demon again and hope to secretly work things out without being caught in our incapability, such as skipping sleep and spending free time that we should otherwise use to cultivate skills to compensate for our incapability. Or we completely flee from reality using other excuses, for example, resigning from work with a fake reason that we are sick or have gotten a better job.
It may seem like we are stuck in the loop of procrastination, anxiety, and avoidance, but as we cycle through the loop, we are charging up our resolve to break through the wall of stubbornness.
In the end, we will reach the utmost acceptance in the form of respect. We respect our own well-being and start cultivating our self-care, skills, and disciplines (and move on to the human realm) without yielding to expectations, understanding, approval, or validation from anyone. We also respect other people’s right to push expectations onto us, but we dare to protect our boundaries without fear or avoidance. We dare to communicate what we can and cannot do, are and are not, because we no longer wear the mask of a god.
If you have read our previous article about why we hate, you may notice a déjà vu of words and patterns. This is not a coincidence nor intention, but rather because nature exhibits this pattern.
However, in Jackie’s case, though the door to the human realm was laid before him, he was not strong enough to open the door because his wall of stubbornness was too high; his power of resolve is still not enough to break through. As he had floated past the door and gone through the deaths and rebirths in the animal realm too many times without being able to detach from his ideal, he depleted his sense of self-worth and entered the Hell realm — the realm of depression.
To Be Continued.
And part 1 ends here. In part 2, we will see how Jackie traveled through the Hell realm to “cultivate” his experience of depression and how he then reached the Ghost realm and became a hungry ghost of addiction. We will help him solve the puzzle of serpent, rooster and pig to find the way to Human realm. In Part 3, we will follow the footprints of the Buddha to visit the realm of God and find the meaning of “green lion devouring the sun”.
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