That's Just Perfect

This OCD joke is everywhere now--mugs, memes, t-shirts, and even on an embroidered pillow I saw--but the first time I encountered it was at least 10 years ago, before all that, when it was a cartoon in Reader's Digest. A friend of mine, waiting in the dentist's office, read it, and told me later, "I saw this--it made me think of you!" I guess maybe it was because she had been present to see the look on another friend's face when, on an earlier occasion, they were browsing through my recipe box, and the second friend suddenly asked in consternation, "Wait. Are these in alphabetical order?"

OK, so I have a bit of a reputation. I like things a certain way. The right way.

I like to think of myself as a "recovering perfectionist", however. I hope I'm getting better. After all, I only spent *cough numberofminutes cough* looking for a version of this meme with proper punctuation! Seriously, though, I admit that the siren song of perfectionism has always held a certain lure for me. There is something so appealing about the idea of doing everything perfectly right. And perfectionism, although a futile pursuit, is one that our culture affirms and even idolizes.

Sometimes I think that those of us who are prone to perfectionism tend to think that the only thing wrong with the desire to be perfect is that it's impossible. We all know we can never get there, and that trying will ultimately prove futile. But the truth is, I think it doesn't even matter that perfection is impossible to attain, because even if we could accomplish it, I think we'd find that the accomplishment would let us down. Here's why.

1.  Perfect doesn't touch what we need it to touch.

When we think about being perfect, we have the idea that it means always being right, and always doing right. But in actual fact, to be truly perfect requires something different. Real perfection is not about "rightness"--moral self-improvement. That kind of perfection is actually a lowering of standards, because it's only superficial; it's on the outside. Real perfection would be through and through. In order to be truly perfect, we would need something to touch much deeper--to perfect our hearts, our souls. To make us patient, kind, joyful, humble, forgiving, unselfish. We would need not only to be right, but to be good.

Our real struggle for perfection, then, is over the primacy of self. Removing ourselves from the place of greatest importance is the only path to genuine goodness of heart. And, in a supreme irony, this is the one act that perfectionism will never allow us, because at its heart, perfectionism is all about self. The relentless pursuit of our desire to justify ourselves by our own means, through our own efforts, will yield nothing but an obsession with ourselves and our own outward appearance.

2.  Perfect can't grow what we want it to grow.

But what if I'm mistaken? What if we can achieve goodness through striving for perfection? People smarter than I have certainly thought so. Benjamin Franklin, for example, went to great lengths to record his detailed plan for mastering 13 essential virtues of the heart, including humility. However, I think on deeper examination, we have to acknowledge that even Franklin had to accomplish his plan through trial and error--and it turned out to be a lot of error. In fact, if you read Franklin's journal, you'll find that one of the primary things he learned during his attempt was finding himself "so much fuller of faults than I had imagined", and that is a very important piece of discovery. And in the end, not only does Franklin conclude that it is impossible for him to reach the perfection of virtue he has been striving for, but that, with regard to the problem of pride in particular, "even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility."

So we see that even if we look deeper, past external self-improvement, to a higher standard or different definition of perfection, the virtues we then value can't be developed through a self-focused act of the will. We might, as Franklin says he did, make some improvement in the mastering the appearance of them, but not the substance. Patience, humility, perseverance, resilience, grace--all these are traits borne of suffering, trials, discomfort, surprise. In order to really grow and change, we have to mess things up, make fools of ourselves, fall down and get back up. We can't become the person we envision without making mistakes. True perfection--or the closest thing we can reach--is only arrived at through the experience of our own imperfection.

3.  Perfect won't do what we want it to do.

But why do we really want to be perfect anyway? I think it's because the idea of perfection isn't appealing only as an end in itself--its attraction is in what we think it will do for us. Deep down, we somehow believe that if we just do everything right, we can somehow make everything else go right too. Perfectionism is an effort to gain control, over ourselves and over our circumstances. If we can just do everything exactly right, we can make sure of the outcomes for the people, interactions, situations, and relationships that make up our lives. Things will always go the way we hope. Certainly, at least, no one will ever be able to look down on us, criticize us, be angry with us, or dislike us if we are perfect. Being perfect will make us good enough, in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. In other words, we believe that our perfection will protect both our loved ones and ourselves from the unexpected, the undesirable, and from failure, pain, and rejection.

The unfortunate truth is that perfection can't cause any of this to happen, or keep any of it from happening. Life is unpredictable, and the world is sometimes a painful and scary place. Bad things happen. They happen to us, and to the people we love. Sometimes this is because we make mistakes, but not always. Sometimes it's because other people make mistakes. And sometimes it's just the way the world is. It's broken, and we can never fix it all on our own. We can only do our best, and even then, even if our best was perfect, it is no guarantee that things will go right, or that others will love us, accept us, or approve of us. As long as we live as broken people in a broken world, there will be tragedy and loss--we will hurt each other, and things that no one understands will sometimes happen. No matter how perfect we are, nothing can change this.

So what can we say then? If the pursuit of perfection is empty, what good can we take away? I think there is still something. The beauty in the complete barrenness, the empty promise that is perfectionism, is that it reminds us who we are. We are the Beloved. And as the Beloved, it is not our job to do any of the things we have tried to accomplish through our own perfection. We cannot save ourselves from pain, failure, or loss; we cannot make ourselves loved, accepted, respected; we cannot ensure that everything in our world will go right; and we do not have to. We were not created for this purpose. As the Beloved, we were created to be loved. And so we are. We need do nothing to earn it, and nothing that we or anyone else can do, say, or think, can change it. Our value is secure--our welfare is assured. Perfection can never offer us either.