Perfection is Overrated: Why Everyone Should Embrace Flaws
Life is Too Short to Be a Perfectionist!
Are you the type of person who needs every aspect of their life to be in order at all times? Do you beat yourself up when things don’t go exactly as planned or when you make a mistake? Do you obsess over projects and plans, never feeling that you have done a good enough job? If this sounds like you, you may be a hopeless perfectionist. Perfectionists carry the weight of the world on their backs, always wondering how they could have been better or more perfect. This obsession with perfection can be paralyzing and can affect your life in many negative ways. Finding ways to accept flaws can be the difference between a life of happiness and one of disappointment.
Firstly, it is important to understand that perfection is both impossible and overrated. Perfection is a subjective term, meaning that what is perfect for one person my not be for someone else. Although there may be cultural norms, which we hope to strive for, there is no such thing as perfection. To reach for it will only cause disappointment when you realize that it is unattainable. Furthermore, perfection is overrated. Many people think that if they can be more perfect, people will like them more, they will have more control over their own lives, and that they will be able to keep a handle of everything. Unfortunately, life doesn’t care how careful and particular you are, even if you feel that you have control over everything in your life for a time, one day something will happen and upend everything in which you felt so confident.
Secondly, perfectionists often tend to miss the fact that mistakes and failures are learning tools if you choose to see them that way. Often those striving for perfection are so disheartened by mistakes that they fail to see a lesson to be learned. If you are keen enough to realize when you have failed and how you can do better next time, then the mistake does not seem so enormous. Unfortunately, many perfectionists are so hung up on the fact that they weren’t perfect enough, they miss the lesson in their mistake and are therefore doomed to repeat it.
Another tragedy of being a perfectionist is that they often fail to see that those people and actions which are not perfect often tend to be the most interesting and unique. There is much beauty and wisdom in the world that is not traditionally seen as perfect. Many people who believe that there is only one way to define perfect end up missing all the interesting and unique imperfections in the world.
Lastly, being a perfectionist can often mean that in your constant need to strive for perfection, you miss a lot of life. Between berating yourself for your mistakes and your singular drive to be better, buying into perfectionism blinds you to the spontaneity and unplanned for joys of life. Often, even when life does not go as planned, great things can come about from the unexpected.
