The Future that Never Arrives
I’ve found myself thinking about perfectionism and the powerful spell it can cast over those of us who engage in it. A phrase came into my head that sums up the cost of perfectionism to the person held in its spell. Perfectionism is never about the present moment. It’s always about a future that never arrives.
Think about that for a second.
In that sense, when I’m being a perfectionist what I’m really doing is deferring the life I say I want.
Doesn’t that sound like crazy behavior? It’s like telling someone you want to have a closer relationship with to “go away closer.” Could a closer relationship possibly come from that?
An objection I hear from people I talk to with perfectionistic tendencies is some form of, “well, that’s just the way I am,” but that’s not true. It’s not the way you are; it’s a way you, like me, learned to cope with the world.
Nobody is born a perfectionist
Nobody is born a perfectionist. Very simply, perfectionism is an attempt to control an uncontrollable world, which is why it ultimately ends in everything ranging from disappointment to illness.
When I’m thinking and acting in a perfectionistic manner, I’m attempting to cherry-pick what shows up in my experience of life. I want more of what I call the pleasant experiences, and less of what I consider to be the unpleasant experiences.
That’s understandable, but only up to a point. Engaging in an attempt to control my experience of life is based on a false notion, but it’s one I’ve noticed most of us believe.
We’re convinced that some experiences and thoughts are more dangerous than others.
We’re convinced that some experiences and thoughts are more dangerous than others. Just to be clear, I’m not referring to experiences where someone is in physical danger. I’m talking about experiences and thoughts we’ve decided put us at risk of harm because we don’t like the way we feel when we have those thoughts and experiences.
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Can experiencing something you’re not comfortable with put you in danger? No, but the thoughts accompanying the experience can make us feel like we’re in grave, mortal danger.
It’s a reminder of where our experience of life actually comes from: not from what we think of as the experience we’ve having, but from the thinking the experience brings up, and our relationship with that thinking.
Is that all that’s going on when I’m scared? Yes. Because the sense of reality each one of us has is generated entirely by our thinking about what what we’re experiencing, not by the experience itself.
It was necessary for me to take a close look at where I’m most likely to find perfection.
The cost of my perfectionism only became clear to me when the need for what I considered to be perfect started to fade. For that to happen, it was necessary for me to take a close look at where I’m most likely to find perfection. Is it in my own version of what’s perfect? Or could it possibly be the version of perfection life hands me?
Is being a perfectionist giving you the life you want? Whatever kind of life you want, you’re much more likely to be able to live that life by allowing yourself to see the perfection that’s already surrounding you. If I’ve learned anything at all about perfectionism it’s this: in the long run, the version of perfection offered to me by life always has more to offer me than any version I can conjure up.
