Our Perfect Selves

I attended a talk by Jeff Oliver about perfectionism. Jeff is a former Buddhist monk and meditation master  who is exceptionally in touch with his inner self. What is perfectionism? It is a propensity for being displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet extremely high standards. Thus, a perfectionist is a person who is displeased by anything that does not meet very high standards.

Consider this. If we were to look deep within ourselves, we will find that we each have mental images of who we think we are. This image is closely connected to our ideals and beliefs. For many of us, this image is most likely the more ideal version of ourselves. There are many sources from which this image is derived. It could be instilled in upbringing, from our parents and teachers. As we grow up, it could be from our religious teachers, our friends and the media. Some say we inherit perfectionism from our genes. We see ourselves as the perfect parent, sons or daughters, Buddhists or Christians, the successful and caring family man, perfect boss etc.

How does our childhood contribute to our perfectionism? Adults who do not allow mistakes and with overly high expectations. The most common example is when we break cutlery and adults get upset. Or we are made to write and re-write until our handwriting is near perfect. We are expected to score the maximum number of As in our exams. While they may have good intentions, the message that we hear as children is that it is unacceptable to make mistakes and we have to work to get approval. We learn early in life that we are valued for our achievements, and that we may just not be good enough. In the media, we are constantly bombarded with pictures of how the perfect man, woman and family should look like and behave.

As adults, we constantly judge, compare and criticise ourselves against the mental images of who we think we should be . As a result we always feel that we are never good enough. We live in a world of self criticism, beat ourselves up and wallow in guilt. We are not perfect but we believe that we should be. And we spend our time looking to what we want but not what we have.

Perfectionism tends to have two components: a positive side, like setting high standards for ourselves as in the high achievers; and a negative side, which involves fears and concerns over mistakes and failure. While high achievers have high but reasonable expectations, perfectionists' goals aren't always reasonable. High achievers enjoy the process of chasing a goal. Conversely, the underlying motive present in perfectionists is the fear of failure and fear of rejection. It can be sad and painful because they blame themselves when they fail to meet expectations. They think erroneously that they have to achieve to get love, like the students who commit suicide because they fail to obtain the string of As they think their parents expect. They think that their parents will love them more if they are perfect. It is heartbreaking.

The antidote is acceptance and forgiveness. Accept ourselves for who we are. Learn to love ourselves for who we are and not who we think we should be or the world should be. Forgive ourselves, because human beings were meant to be unique and not perfect. Otherwise, we are only setting ourselves up for a host of problems by chasing the illusion of perfection because there is none.