The Perfection Thing
Many people adopt the goal of perfection as a senior organizing principle in their lives. Many religions and philosophies concern themselves with moving from an imperfect state to one of perfection. Often those who have taken on the cause of perfection as their marching orders do not realize that this is what they have done.
Much is made of improvement, progress, development, and advancement. The idea is that your current state is not good enough, and you must strive for the ideal of human flawlessness.
Let’s follow the implications of this idea. First and foremost is the notion that imperfection is wrong and must be addressed. The second implication: your life has the goal of becoming better than you are. Third: there is something wrong with how you are.
We need to make a distinction between wanting to become better at a skill – becoming a better golfer, musician, computer programmer, etc – and becoming a better human being. To show how separable these are we can see that becoming a better driver, or a better chef, or a better pool player does not make you a better human being. You would be the same human being, but have a different skill set.
Why do we think that perfection is a higher state than imperfection? It is the flaw in the crystal than makes the crystal more interesting. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is formally a perfect work. His Ninth is imperfect from a formal point of view. Yet, while the Fifth is magnificent, the Ninth reaches expressive heights the Fifth could not approach.
We have seen very nice people ignore the beauty of their lives because of their obsession with the concept of perfection. Sad for them on two fronts. This first is the utter impossibility to define what a perfect human being is. Even the saints were not perfect, but able to rise above their imperfections. That means they were imperfect, and acted accordingly. So, for those of you who are convinced that perfection should be the goal in life, you’ve come to the wrong planet. Sorry. This is Earth. As Robert Frost said, “Earth’s the right place for love. I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.” It is not a plane of perfection or even a plane that is capable of reaching perfection. But then, it is better than perfection. It is life lived within the realm of all of fantastic imperfections of irony, love, and even loss.
When you try to make more of something than it is, you deny what it is. Any glorification diminishes what is being glorified. When we try to make life more than it is by giving it the goal of perfection, we are unable to appreciate the miracle that is before our eyes.
If you think your job in life is to be perfect, you will have trouble learning. To learn, one needs to be able to tolerate their current abilities in relationship to their desired abilities. We have seen many people in workshops who have begun with the notion that they must be perfect, so they are especially critical of themselves when they are in a learning process. It is hard for them to be comfortable with their current level. They are less in a true learning mode, and more in a reactive mode, the imperfection being the source of conflict to which they are trying to escape.
If you are like many people who have a perfection thing, the best thing you can do is give it up. It is not a worthy goal. It is not really progress of any kind. All it does is give you the impression that you are not good enough and must somehow drive yourself to improve because you are unacceptable as you are. While many people would like to set themselves up as the authority of how you should be, they are not credible. You may have goals that you have not yet reached. But reaching these goals does not lead to perfection. They only are part of a building process in which you are pursuing those things that matter to you. The true power of the creative process is in the ability to organize your life around those things that matter to you BECAUSE THEY MATTER TO YOU, and not because they make you perfect.
We love our children with all their little imperfections. We wouldn’t trade their little imperfections for what might be thought of as a perfect child. The same is true for the rest of us.
If you weren’t trying to pursue the evasive goal of perfection, what would you begin to think about? Those things that matter deeply to you. Things like love, relationship, involvement with life, interesting experiments to experience. Then life opens up to a wider truth, so beautifully expressed by screen legend Paul Newman a week before his death a few days ago. He said, “It’s been a privilege.”
by Robert Fritz, 2008
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Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious. – Brendan Gill