I am a perfectionist. Somewhere in my teens, I picked up the idea that I needed to be perfect. I thoroughly embraced my faith at the time and was inspired to live my life on the next level, a shining example of moral conduct and personal excellence.
That’s all good and well, except I tend to take things to the extreme. I set incredibly high standards for myself and would beat myself up if I made a mistake, or failed at something. I always felt like I had to be on point, on the ball, all the time…so much damn pressure.
But perfection is a fantasy, and eventually life catches up with us…in its glorious fuckedupness. My pursuit of perfection went so far and my frustration with falling short repeatedly built up so much that I finally gave up. I stopped trying and began to learn to be. I let myself off the hook.
Now I’ve learned that perfection is an illusion, something to be sought, but never attained (perhaps only in hindsight). A guiding star, rather than a destination. Life is messy, and flaws are distinguishing features.
Sometimes when I have an idea or I need to create, I have high expectations for how I want it to turn out…the higher they are, the less likely I would start working on it. I’ve learned to make allowance for fuck ups. I fly right into the creative storm knowing full well that I would only probably reach 80% of the awesomeness I seek…if I’m lucky. This ensures I actually do produce things, and perhaps…one out of a hundred would actually be perfect.
Awesome! Couldn’t have been said better! Perfection should be “a guiding star and not a destination”.
Nice one mehn!!!inspiring
Embrace the vicissitude of life, my friend.. The ebb and flow…. Create in the NOW. The moment you lose focus of that, the less fun it is to create and the less creative/innovative it becomes.
Create from a place of now.
Love the blog, by the way.
true…setting standards that are too high discourages one…all we can do is try to do our best all the time