How The Hunger For Perfection Ruins The Quality Of Life
No matter where you go, you will always find people who are willing to change themselves for the sake of being admired by other people. I have been one of those people in the past and I'm pretty sure you have too. It's something we don't admit out in the open, but deep inside are all aware of.
Especially in this modern era of social networking where your self worth is judged based on the number of likes and follows you have, we are constantly trying to fit into categories in order to be admired, seen, praised, and paid attention to by other people.
Even though it might seem completely normal and harmless to strive for perfection, it usually gives out quite the opposite effect. The irony of perfection is how so many people try to reach something that doesn't even exist. As Stephen Hawking once said and I quote:
One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn't exist. Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.
How Perfection Destroys Uniqueness
Imagine this: You live in a world where everything and everyone is perfect. Nothing is even remotely flawed or defected and everyone looks exactly like our general perception of a perfect human. At first thought, the idea sounds pretty cool, right?
But soon after when you start to see a bigger picture, you will realize just how horrific and terrible it can really be. Everyone, though being perfect, would look terribly insignificant as they look exactly like every other person and there's no uniqueness left in the world.
Now look at our world; a world with all kinds of people with different personalities, different ethnicities, different cultures and different lifestyles. Everyone gives out a distinct aura that is the reflection of the person they truly are, and that's exactly what uniqueness is all about.
Perfection, on the other hand, ruins our individuality and causes us to want to become something that we are not. It causes us to strive for admiration when instead we should be striving for self-affection.
The Beauty Of Imperfection
Think of people as colors. Just like how there is no perfect color, there is no perfect kind of person either. Each color has its own individual style, individual characteristic, and serves a different purpose, just like people do.
Even the most beautiful of things in the world have some irregularities or flaws in them which separates them from everything else. Again, same goes for us humans. For us, we differ by a lot of things, especially our scars. Not just the physical ones, but the ones that are now a part of our very being.
Many people believe in hiding their scars because they are afraid to reveal their true selves in front of the world and would rather keeping hiding them by constantly trying to be perfect in the eyes of others than confronting their fear of being imperfect and broken.
The way I see it, scars are stories that are usually left unsaid. Think about it. Every single one of us in our lives has faced something so severe that we can't go back to being the person we once were, and that's exactly what makes us so beautiful.
If you liked this article or found it useful, you might also like:
- Why Being Patient Is Not Always The Best Thing To Do
- How Craving For Happiness Can Actually Make You Feel Sad
Continue reading:
- How Using Big Words Unnecessarily Can Make You Sound Stupid
- 3 Most Cliché Topics Almost Everyone Writes About
- What To Write About When You Run Out Of Ideas
- How Companies Use Fear As A Tool Into Making You Buy Their Products
I agree, as visual artist I too for a very short while have tried to "become", but that was short lived. I grew up believing in and liking my different side. All sincerity, in my formative years other's opinion used to influence my behavior, but that never prevented me from being me.
Also, there are circumstances/factors in my life that made me understand about the less fortunate, since young age. Well written post, as always, Thank You for sharing.
It's all about being the best 'you' you can be. Perfection is just an illusion; it fades away.
P.S. Thanks for the compliment :)
I think this is a reasonably complicated subject. I agree that people should not be changing who they are unnecessarily but that doesn't mean they shouldn't work on their weaknesses or flaws. They shouldn't beat themselves up for it as that doesn't help at all and it is good to know that you can make a success of yourself in a different way and find your own path, but people still need to work on self-development and improving their weaknesses if it is holding them back, while also taking advantage of their strengths. Sometimes weaknesses can affect success in stuff like tertiary study etc so people might have to work out how to improve these weaknesses, which can be hard if the "normal" solutions don't work for them. Sometimes you have no idea how to change, but you are in the situation that you have to. Because people are different though it can be hard to work out how to improve weaknesses, especially if the causes are different even for the same weakness. This especially applies if it is an issue "normal" people can have but it can also can be caused by a disorder etc as the causes are quite different and the solutions tend to be different too (there might be some overlap where solutions help both people but there's also times where the "normal" solution to that problem won't help an individual). Perfection is not what people should be aiming for and sometimes people may feel broken, and they shouldn't, but sometimes it comes down to a case of you don't have a choice but to try to improve your weaknesses, and that can involve failure but it also can involve learning about yourself and how you think and what strategies work for you. I couldn't personally not be an individual, but we can't ignore the facts that:
Perfectionism is a problem. I definitely agree with that. It causes more problems than the amount of success it creates, and we must accept that people are different and people must know they can at least try to make their own path in life (unfortunately that doesn't work out for everyone but they must know they can at least try, especially if the "normal" routes to success in life isn't working for them).
However, some people are struggling and it's not beautiful and they want to improve but it is a struggle so we shouldn't just be embracing our weaknesses as individuality either. It's not something to beat yourself up about, but if it is affecting your success and quality of life, it is something to work on and to discover how to improve on, not embrace. Embrace your strengths and take advantage of them. Don't be harsh on yourself for your weaknesses but be aware of them and if they are affecting your life in a negative way, try to improve on them. It can be painful, especially if you don't know how to improve and attempts at improving lead to failure, but eventually and overall trying to improve on weaknesses taht affect your life will improve the quality of your life.
I agree. You shouldn't misunderstand your weaknesses as signs of individuality and uniqueness and try to live with them. Instead, work on them. Know the difference between actual weakness and unique qualities that you possess. Like, if you are an artist in a neighborhood where everyone plans to be an accountant or a businessman, then that's a quality, not weakness.
While on the other hand, if you have mental problems like anxiety or depression, they are something to be worked at, and not called "individual characteristic". Doing so will only make things worse because you will be embracing something that is supposed to be treated. Working on your real weakness or problems isn't striving for perfection, it's taking care of yourself.
Imperfection is to be embraced when it has a meaningful purpose. Even if that purpose is as small as wanting to be happy. It's when you can say, "I'm not perfect, but at least I'm me."
P.S. Thanks for writing such a detailed comment. Highly appreciated!
I couldn't agree more with your thoughts here. I am a Classical Musician, and I've seen how the quest for perfection (sometimes the quest to not make mistakes) has taken away the character and soul of musicians and performances.
I can see why artists, especially musicians, would want their work to be the absolutely best and free from any flaw. The desire to make perfection is human, but the very want for it leaves no room for improvement; all it leaves you with is restlessness.
The key idea here is to strive for greatness, not perfection.
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by ayushjalan from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.
Nice post. Good information to me.
Thanks.
This is so true. I feel, that people are afraid to be who they really are. Just trying to fit into the crowd
Yes! And in the process of fitting in the crowd, somewhere down that road, they lose themselves.
I totally agree. If we were all perfect, it would be a boring world.
Exactly!
Oh I adore the storm trooper lego picture!
Another great post! Keep them coming!
Upvoted.
Haha glad you liked it :)
cool post!! Actually, I was talking about the same things with some of my students few days back and i realized that everyone loves the idea of being imperfect, being different but is too scared for not being accepted!
Being different can indeed be scary, but then again, it's also what makes us stand out among the crowd.
There is perfection in our imperfections and to someone, we just may be perfect but I do believe in the sediment of your post. :D I like your style and follow you now. See you around the blockchain and Discord.
True! You comment reminded me of the song All Of Me by John Legend where in the song he writes "All your perfect imperfections" haha
Our imperfections can indeed be someone else's perfection :)
Thanks for the compliment and the follow! :D
@ayushjalan I think I may have been thinking about the song in the back of my mind when I wrote it lol... And you are very welcome!
:)