The Pursuit of Imperfection

I find myself at a crossroads in my career and like a grandpa inundated by the different kinds of milk at the grocery store nowadays (would you like skim, two percent, whole, almond or soy? In a quart or gallon? which brand?) I am rendered completely petrified. In a way, yes it’s a good—and dare I say—privileged problem to have, that I have so many opportunities to cherry pick from. But what’s interesting is it’s not the plethora of options that’s hindering me, but rather the fear of picking the wrong one. And perhaps more infuriatingly, when there really isn’t a “wrong” choice, how the hell can I know what the “right” choice is?

I reckon it must be how this girl felt in a reality TV show I was watching. She always had a knack for coloring—that’s right, not drawing but coloring—because she felt relieved of the pressure of actually creating the picture and could (excuse the cliché) stay within the lines. So when she was invited to an artist’s studio and the artist offered to teach her a lesson in sketching, the girl froze, her pencil centimeters from the page. Her mind went blank and she had no idea what to draw. “I can’t do this,” she said. The artist then laughed gently and said, “Most people think they can’t draw because they’re too concerned about making it pretty or perfect. Sometimes you just have to start drawing.”

It suddenly struck me that sometimes the drive for perfection can be the very thing that stunts us from doing the thing we most want to do. Not just in art, but also in life, because perfection is neither realistic nor meaningful.

I can be an inveterate prude when it comes to certain things, never choosing to act until I’ve carefully analyzed every angle. My boyfriend also noticed that when I do well on a test, for example, I would immediately say “Well, it was probably just an easy test.” I wish I could tell you it was to feign humility, but I do in fact believe that. When I tried to find the root of this insatiable thirst for perfection, my gaze invariably landed on my parents once again (when in doubt, blame your parents, right?) but this time I still couldn’t find the grounds to assign fault. Sure, they gave me the finger-wag if I didn’t do well in grade school, but before long they were singing quite the opposite tune, telling me to go to bed and stop stressing about my tests as early as in middle school. So what could it be? Is it simply, as Julia Roberts said in Pretty Woman, “It’s easier to believe the bad stuff?” 

It turns out that while my parents dole out their fair share of obligatory “I’m so proud of yous” and “It’s okay to fail sometimes,” the truth is, I’ve never actually seen them fail. Neither do they ever speak of their struggles or frustrations in front of little ol’ me. So subconsciously, I may have learned to discount the praise as mere courtesy. Unhealthy, I know, but still, not their fault entirely.

Once again, it was my suddenly omniscient boyfriend who nailed it on the head. It would appear that I can’t seem to take a compliment or make spontaneous decisions because I lack courage in myself, the courage to believe that I am indeed deserving of praise and that I would have the strength to overcome it if I made the wrong decision and failed. I may not be able to command the elements and guarantee calm waters before I set sail, but if it’s a matter of courage, it’s good to know at least that’s something I can control. So instead of pursuing perfection, maybe it’s time I acquire some grit.

can we help turning into our parents?

It occurred to me lately how strange it is that we can “dislike ourselves,” because it means we have a vision of how we should be and have actively chosen to disappoint ourselves, that we can know what the right thing is to do and consciously act against it.

It means, on a day-to-day basis, we make decisions that adversely affect our self-image. I suppose it’s like pigging out on burgers when you’re supposed to be watching your weight, then feeling guilty and defeated the next day. But the bizarre part of it all, is that we had 100 percent control over the situation.

A friend of mine was feeling guilty about a relationship decision she made, but when she confided in those around her, she found no sympathy. One girl even blatantly remarked, “Well, it was your decision to make.”

It all comes down to the fact that what we should do is not always what we want to do. Now why on earth would we want to do something that would make us hate ourselves? That sounds masochistic if not at the very least counterproductive. Then I realized, it’s because somehow, deep inside, there might be a delusion that this ostensibly “wrong” decision could make you happy.

After some further probing comparable to a thousand-dollar therapy session, my friend found that in some way her relationship decision was a delayed reaction to her absentee father. She was subconsciously trying to exert her agency (though erroneously placed) to compensate for the lack of her ability to do so in her familial relationship. She thought it would make her happy.

But what about our conscious tendencies to err? If we are aware of our adverse inclinations and we choose to give into them, does that make us worse off than if we had no idea in the first place? So many of us are afraid of becoming our parents (nothing is more offensive to my mom than saying she’s starting to resemble my grandmother. Comes in handy when you’re trying to get her to stop doing something, but let’s keep that our little secret). Yet, as we all know, we always end up more like them than we’d like to be. So if you know that your mom has a bad habit of interrupting people when they talk, and you find yourself doing the same as you age, but you don’t make a concerted effort to curb it, does this make you a bad person? Or can we just blame genetic predisposition?

As I hear more and more of my aunts, uncles, doctors, and even shopkeepers remark on my growing resemblance to my mother, I stop and take a third-person look at myself. I remember just yesterday venting to my best friend about how my mother is stubborn, pessimistic, high strung and then I realized, those are some of the characteristics I possess, some of which have led to my proudest successes. So yes not only do we often desire to do that which harms us, sometimes the “bad” can lead to a good outcome. So you’re welcome for bringing to light yet another one of life’s enigmas without any conceivable solution, but know this: you’re not alone if you feel like sometimes it’s hard to make the right decision, because after all, if it were so easy, the world would be a perfect place, wouldn’t it?