The Art (in) Perfectionism

                                                      

Sometimes when I brush my teeth at night, I look down and inspect the sink in the bedroom where my toothbrush and paste are located.

And unless I've just scrubbed it down until sparkling, I have an unheimlich feeling of horror while looking. It's almost never clean enough for my ablutions, and I hear myself questioning my self worth: what have you accomplished today, anyway? Your sink is dirty. You can do better.

This is when I know that I stayed up too late and my tired voice is talking to me....

At this point I try to make a b-line to bed, surrendering to the sandman, hoping that my horror will stay at the sink and the sandman will caress me gently with kinder words.

It didn't occur to me until today, while talking to a new student, that maybe perfectionism was the culprit. But this isn't what you think it's going to be. I am not going to tell you to strive not to be a perfectionist. That is being done by others, and it's being done really well.

I have a different thought about all of this, and I'm writing it down here before I forget.

My student is about to leave for Paris with her daughter, and recognizes a desire to speak French perfectly that is inhibiting her from speaking at all. She doesn't want to make any mistakes.

"All you need to do is make an effort to speak French," I say, "and people will be so charmed," all while encouraging her to ignore her inner critic.

But what I'm really thinking about is how I want to mirror back to her that it's okay to be striving for perfection, as long as she isn't hurting herself and others. Otherwise it's a mise-en-abime of continuous self-criticism, where "i'm not good enough" hands the baton to "i'm overly perfectionistic." And there can be beauty at the core of the impulse to do something perfectly.

It's the basic happiness strained by the striving that we need to consider. Is perfectionism leaving you in a constant state of fight or flight? How is it impacting your central nervous system? Are you spending your day at work and then coming home only to tell yourself you weren't good enough today (and are you doing this every day?) 

I thought of I.M. Pei and the pyramid, and the perfectionism that must have been behind the drawings and the execution of it's construction. I could spend hours, days gazing at this sparkling treasure. It is sheer beauty that mirrors back beauty. 

                                  

So I agree with you, we must take perfectionism a notch down if it leads to negative self-talk instead of mirroring kindness to self and to other. But those impulses to do good things well are often coming from a place of goodness and even generosity and embracing love of the subject, of others, and life itself. 

We can also mirror that back to ourselves and our friends, families, and self-abnegating students, even if we may end up doing so -- imperfectly.