Perfection

Perfection. It’s an interesting one.

Perhaps because it can hide behind many disguises. Sometimes it looks like fear. Sometimes shame. Sometimes procrastination. I’ve heard it called “resistance” and in the coaching world, it might be referred to as “imposter syndrome”.

But I wonder how often, underneath all the words and the labels, the impossible thing we’re striving for is: perfection

“Perfection is a myth” 

We know this. We’ve heard it. We have the posters and the slogan mugs to prove it.

But do we really know it? I mean deep into our bones with every part of being know it? Because if we really know that perfection doesn’t exist, then why does it show up in so many places in our lives. Not just the big places. The little places too.

The house that needs to be tidy before someone comes over.

I listened to a podcast recently that talked about “shabby hospitality”. An experiment was done to measure the connection guests felt towards the host of a dinner party when things were absolutely perfect and pristine, as opposed to less perfect and, well, “shabby”. It’s probably no surprise that guests felt the most connection when the experience less perfect. So if the point of a dinner party, or having friends visit is connection, why do we still strive for perfection?

The thing we don't attempt because we might not be good at it.

I think our tolerance for not being good at something decreases as we get older. I was chatting to a lady the other day, at a school function and she told me how much she would have loved to learn the violin. When I asked her if she had ever had lessons or why she didn’t start learning now, she answered “Oh no, I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t be good at it”

 And I wondered about the disappointment of never trying something simply because we would need to be a learner before we could be an expert. Children expect to be beginners. They draw badly, fall off bikes, play screeching violin notes, miss the ball but they carry on. Somewhere along the way, many adults become embarrassed by being visibly inexperienced. At some point, we stop giving ourselves permission to be beginners. But how can we learn something new if we’re unwilling to be bad at it first? Isn’t this what learning is about?

The photograph we don’t take because we don't like how we look.

There seems to be a point in time where we decide that our appearance is not worthy of a simple photograph. This one shows up for me a lot and I don’t think I’m alone in this.  Perhaps worse, is that it’s not a conscious omission. It’s almost like a reflex.

And suddenly this reflex creates an absence.

 I only really noticed it when my youngest daughter wanted to know where all the photographs were of the two of us together. I realised that in recent years, there were maybe three?

Most family photographs (the happy snaps) aren't really about how we look. They're evidence that we were there. So I wonder what visual memories we’re removing ourselves from while we’re waiting to look different?

I also realised that I needed to be seen in photographs for Northwards. That I couldn’t ask other people to be vulnerable and be seen if I was busy hiding myself.

The words we don't write because we can't make them sound quite right.

 Another one of mine. And there is, of course, some irony in the desire to write the perfect blog observation about perfection!

I started as a writer. Words were the way I made sense of the pictures in my head but eventually perfectionism encouraged me to put my writing aside. Perhaps it took the promise I made to my mother-in-law in her last few days of life ( to start writing again) to make writing more important than my fear of doing it imperfectly.

The exercise program we don't begin because we can't commit to doing it “properly.”

This is where perfection is incredibly good at disguising itself as something else. As being sensible:

I'll start when work settles down. I'll start after the holidays. I'll do it when I can commit to three times a week. There's no point going for twenty minutes. I've already missed two sessions this week.

None of these necessarily sound like perfectionism. They sound reasonable.

And yet the result is the same: we don't participate. We are absent.

Maybe the problem isn't that we still believe perfection is possible. Maybe the problem is that, despite knowing it isn't possible, we continue to organise parts of our lives around it.

We wait until the house is tidy enough to invite people in. Until we're confident enough to be a beginner. Until we look different enough to be in the photograph. Until the words are good enough to be read. Until we have enough time, motivation or fitness to begin moving our bodies.

And while we're waiting, life carries on.

Perhaps that's the real cost of perfection. Not that we never achieve it-we already know we won't-but that in striving for it, we sometimes remove ourselves from our own lives.

I'm beginning to wonder whether the antidote to perfection isn't “imperfection” at all.

Maybe it's participation.

Being in the photograph.

Picking up the violin.

Writing the words.

Going for the walk.

Beginning before we're ready.

Not perfectly. But being there just as we are.

I don’t have the answer. But I wonder what might happen if we noticed the places where perfection keeps us from participating. The things we postpone. The experiences we sidestep. The parts of our own lives we remove ourselves from without even noticing.

Maybe noticing is enough to begin.