Rage against the Perfectionist

Good evening ladies and gentleman,

So  i am hoping to understand why we are insecure, why we move to such self destructive behavior patterns, ignore that why that should be driving us forward and ignoring those incidences, those wonderfully energetic passionate people and ideas that make us feel good, so much more capable than we usually think we are. This way we can do those things we didn’t think we can do, be that person we always wanted to be. If we allowed people and things to matter, to actually mean something more than our “perfect little circle” maybe we may notice what utterly wonderful things we are missing out on.

Why are we more comfortable this way? I believe it is because, in the deepest darkest parts of our minds, we are all  perfectionists. We can be, at times, in certain realities of modern life extremely bored. Lets be honest, certain aspects of life can just be so….dull. The best way i can explain it is we all live in a box. We like this box, its got all of the stuff we like, the people we know, whether we like them or not and everything is there, it all has its place. We are good at being the box- but there is a gigantic problem.

There are two boxes. We have “where life is right now” and the “perfect life.” This second box has everything. The big house, that career you always imagined being able to do , the five star partner, the perfect two and half children we are told is the number for the “perfect” family to function properly in modern society, the holiday to the white beaches and blue oceans, everything. We imagine this ideal everyday, as if we perfectionists couldn’t have it any better.

This second box causes a problem because it means the box we live in, the things we have will never be good enough, so we spend so long thinking about breaking out of the box and leaping for the second one. Essentially making us feel like something is missing from our lives, like what we have is never enough. There are, however, two issues that means we will never make it to the second box- that “perfect” life.

We have total and utter understanding of how things flow in the first box, we can play our lives like we are conducting a symphony. The job we work through to buy things we think will make us happy, the mediocre generic people lacking in any form of ideals, only wanting to force you further down into the box, to “get on” and do what your supposed to, move up in a company that doesn’t interest you, meet people and meet someone calm and safe that wont do anything, ignoring the critical fact of a relationship is they don’t really make you feel anything, or maybe even more importantly don’t want to make you feel anything. Nothing is worth missing out on that for.

The major person keeping us in this box, however, is us. We are safe in there, its familiar, its our own way of “perfect” with the unfortunate truth being a much better word for it is “manageable.”

Why does life have to be manageable? Why does a life, an ideal, what makes you feel passion, feel awe, have to be defined to a box? Here’s what i say. Why does there have to be any boxes? Why do we have to work towards a box that we are told is interesting, is the done thing in society, to move up and earn more money, this way life will mean so much more to us, it will be all worth the effort. This “perfect” ideal we all seem to strive for, to make the enviable leap to the second box that will never come. There is no such thing as perfect, and this is why there is such an issue with the self-destructive behavior of a perfectionist. We believe with all of our might that if we don’t get there, it will wont be worth it because it wont be the greatest thing ever. We could achieve the “greatest thing ever,” we could make it to the second box and still wind up miserable because the feeling of relief and glee we were expecting didn’t come, because there is something else missing, stopping perfection, as there will be again, again and again.

All these boxes seem to do is make us miserable, so fuck the boxes people! Let the cards we have been so attached to holding to our chest fall where they may because this screwed up world is so far from perfect, as much as we try to imagine it to be. The cards will fall and we won’t ever be able to change them.  I say we rage against the perfectionist because its hardly an enjoyable way of living, understand that these insecurities we work so hard to avoid, the anxiety that creeps through you every time you think about  is because it doesnt fit the “perfect.” Its as if we obsess over things that make us feel bad, trying to achieve something that will never come- questioning why we should have the “perfect” at all. Why not be confident in what you do everyday, live life as if there are no limitations, nothing that can stop you doing what you want, from being who you want to be except you.

The biggest barrier stopping us is us. This idea that things should be “perfect” because if they aren’t we are nothing. Rage against the perfectionist and live life as full and well as you can, for the truth is, there will never be such thing as perfect.

Yours, DR,

Random motivational picture

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