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Perfection - freedom of fault or defect; the state of being saintly; an exemplification of supreme excellence; unsurpassable degree of accuracy.
The impervious fabric of perfection is a series of glittery untruths sown together in a weft of unrealistic perceptions of an "ideal world". Nothing about perfection is ideal. So why do we crave it?
There is nothing ideal or realistic about perfection. No part of reality will prove to be perfect. As fallible as we are as humans, perfection will never become a component of our identity and of our genome expression and nor should it be. So why do strive to attain such? Why do we feel like perfection is "ideal"? Why do we allow ourselves to abandon dreams, projects because we don't have that perfect angle, that perfect idea, that perfect headline.
Apart from copious picturesque cohesive Instagram feeds, millennials are also known to be amazing strategic marketers. We can market the crap out of ANYTHING - beauty items, a food craze (like the hype for avocado toast) the latest clothing trends, the weirdest, most unusually peculiar meme's and gifs a lot of which I love actually (come on, who doesn't love a good meme. I"ll wait)
Now we see that millennials are just as good at marketing the picture-perfect glam life that is either non-existent in reality or completely made up to gain the attraction of others. Our digital landscape is riddled with the constant visuals of what perfection is. Steering down the paths of today's world we are constantly getting bombarded with the picture perfect visual of a #goals illusion. From body image issues to the supposedly tantalising life of glam ad glitz, too relationships - it's almost too easy to swipe endlessly through these "perfect" illusions and somehow begin to wish things - silly things really.
The trouble is when this flawed ideology begins to trickle down in the minds of our dear tweens. The un-innocence of it all begins to ensue . All of a sudden, you turn around and see little girls dribbling in awe at a 5 inch waist ,swollen hip, Bratz-lipped "Instagram model". They say out of the mouths of babes however if we were to take five minutes out of our own self-indulgent haze and pull up a chair to sit down and actually listen to the babes and the children (because underneath all that makeup and designer goods, there is a child and not an adult underneath), I don't think we'd be comfortable with ourselves and our unfortunate egregiously narcissistic reality that has somehow warped our minds.
There is an inherent beauty in imperfection. In actual reality, it's crucial to begin to understand what imperfections can teach us about our character and our ability to persevere. When you begin to break down what is actually involved in the system of trying to attain perfection, you start to realise that the facets of such system are in a way self-destructive.
Trying to attain perfectionism is actually the antithesis of everything that is productive and successful because what you are essentially saying is that I am willing to waste as much time of my life as I possibly can by avoiding any mistakes while accomplishing a task. Perfectionism is saying I am willing to create a false reality for myself whereby everything in my grasp will be in my control and consequently can be manipulated to reach my standard of excellence. Perfectionism as a result ultimately translates into acquiring an intense deep guilt, shame and sometimes even anger when the littlest of things are knocked outside of our carefully constructed plan. Perfectionism inst a learned behaviour as such but arguably more of a behavioural trait whereby the line between the individual's self-esteem and sense of being and their performance are completely blurred. Both concepts are intertwined where the individual will feel like if they haven't attained perfection they are the root problem, they are the issue and they are the ones to blame.
Can you see you dangerous this mindset is?
It's important to understand the beauty in what the world claims is a default.So far, what we see in social media is how beautiful and how great being perfect is. What we don't see is after the picture is taken and the camera is put down and reality hits (which it will and always will), perfectionists deep down will never ever feel content. Couple this with a tenacious attempt to always attain perfection and you get
unhappiness
questioning your self worth
depression
anxiety
Having the courage to embark on the pursuit of achieving a goal and accomplishing a task where failure seems to be viable obstacle is a beautiful thing.What people fail to realise is that there is strength in overcoming failure. You actually attain mental strength when you begin to understand what you achieve when overcoming failure.There is a beautiful and powerful message embedded in the narrative of getting knocked down, getting pushed out and by your self-will and your mindset having the ability to get yourself back on the path that will lead you to your goal.
In one of my earliest memories, I had a fond love for sketching. My artistic eye was always quite sensitive from a young age and I grew to appreciate minute details of a beautiful landscape in movies that I would watch or the water colours used in the cover-art of a textbook. I was really drawn to understanding how colours and textures and the combination of both could evoke a mood. I remember feeling frustrated when I would spend hours and hours on my kitchen dining table trying to draw a person's face only to look at my picture and realise that the nose that I had spent 45 mins working on - shading and stippling and really just trying to get the best possible curvature - my nose ended up looking like a snout belonging to a pug and not a human nose. Since then, I steered clear of drawing portraits and began to sketch some of my favourite Disney and Pixar characters - anything from Buzzlightyear from Toy Story, to Frozo from The Incredibles to Batman, Captain America, The Simpsons, Shrek - you name it, I drew it.
Looking back though I can still recall the frustration I felt when I realised how I failed at drawing portraits. I came back to trying to attempt drawing them twice but failed - and failed miserably. Something as small as this deterred me from approaching a genre of art for a very long time. When you allow perfectionism to take control you cut yourself off from gaining insight into a new opportunity.
It's funny because for a lot of us perfectionism begins to rear it's ugly head later in life. Take for instance you were as a kid. You raise your hand in school to answer a question and you are driven, loud and passionate about your answer. Even if you get it wrong, you embody this same behaviour for answering the next question.
We would simply be ourselves.Our won unique selves. Not taking a myriad of calculated steps or extensively planning each and every move.
"We would simply just be"
As a kid, you never once stop to think "Oh, am I being too loud" or "Am I doing "too much" or being over the top" or "Is what I'm doing perfect or completely accurate". No - we would just do and say and think. Over time this part of us begins to dim. We find ourselves uncomfortable in our skin. We constantly tug, nitpick and flick at our so called "imperfections".
So when did apathy become what is tolerated? When did the relentless race to perfectionism become conventional?
I think what simply need is to begin to market blatant honesty. Let's cut out ingenuity and parading a false reality and for once deal with each on a human level. as humans we are imperfect, we make mistakes, we make wrong choices.
But does that mean we have to let it define us?
Something to think about I guess?
When I broached this particular topic again last week with some friends of mine, I began to think not only about my generation but the generation that really is watching us at full view. they are the ones that are seeing how we view the world because this is what we talk about and display on social media. It's imperative that we begin to understand that behind every flaw, every default every imperfection it simply eludes to the fact that you and I have a story and these stories are what humanise us. These are stories of courage and of bravery.
“We live in a society and a culture and an economic model that tries to make everything look right. Look at computers. Why are they all putty-colored or off-fucking-white? You make something off-white or beige because you are afraid to use any other color – because you don’t want to offend anybody. But by definition, when you make something no one hates, no one loves it. So I am interested in imperfections, quirkiness, insanity, unpredictability. That’s what we really pay attention to anyway. We don’t talk about planes flying; we talk about them crashing.” ― Tibor Kalman