Your Perfectionism Will Not Save You.

Commentary by Katie Lipoma

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Once again, working on midterms and unsuccessfully attempting to recover from them has largely consumed my time and energy. I miss reading novels, but I decided to select another article to examine and comment on in the spirit of slowing down and tuning into my needs as dissected in last week’s blog post about things that society has forgotten are normal in one’s twenties (and at any age!). Perfectionism is another normal thing to add to that list. Lately, I’ve been struggling a lot with the weight of perfectionism and I’ve been feeling its unfortunate effects.

“your perfectionism will not save you.” by Ayan Artan from the blog, rent free. was an enlightening and comforting read for a natural perfectionist like myself. I swear I came out of the womb with perfectionism embedded into every cell of my body (yes, it’s that bad). However, I truly feel like I found this article at the right time because Artan has a way with words that perfectly communicates her experiences with perfectionism in her daily life in relation to her creative writing studies, book writing process, and identity as a woman of color and devoted Muslim. As a human and writer, I found many of her experiences relatable and they make me feel less alone in my struggle with perfectionism in and out of the classroom.

Here are some brilliant and beautifully worded reflections by Artan that I deeply connected with and found insightful:

• “you do not have to be exceptional to be worthy of respect and dignity. you were born deserving of those things”
• “mistakes have always felt fatal to me”
• “why do we let our own self-doubt poison our love affair with ourselves?”
• “i will go over a piece again and again and again and again, combing through it for the slightest hint of a ‘mistake’. my editors love me because they rarely have to lift a finger when they’re dealing with one of my essays, but the cost of that is often a fair chunk of my own sanity”
• “there is beauty in wanting to be fluent in your chosen creative language- but perfectionism supersedes that urge. perfectionism is wanting to be unharmable. your comparisons are not your peers but God or whatever other force rules benevolent and unquestionable over this cosmos. it is striving for that which is beyond humanness-after all, we accept that we are wired to be flawed- and abusing yourself in the process”
• “your writing will find a home, no matter how you feel about the sentence structure. your thoughts are important, even if they come out ineloquent. not every piece you create will be life altering; every artist, no matter how brilliant, has a skip in the discography, albums we like less than others because they are people”
• “sure, your perfectionism might make you exceptional but it will certainly always make you miserable. i think you deserve more than that”

I think most of us struggle with perfectionism in some capacity. Some more than others. I don’t think perfectionism is an inherent flaw but it can easily become one if left unchecked. As this article title says, perfectionism won’t save us. It won’t save us from ourselves, our imperfections, nor our fixed humanness. Imperfection is a reminder of who we are…human. Artan emphasizes that perfectionism can be selfish and rooted in conceited beliefs about oneself in the sense that one thinks they can be perfect enough to triumph above humanness. What a unique perspective!

This makes me think about society’s dystopian obsession with its deemed idea of perfection and A.I.’s role in asking us to leave our humanness behind to achieve it. A.I. is replacing humanness in its most innate and vital forms (e.g., beauty, writing, etc.) and in doing so, stripping what makes us, us. It’s hard not to let perfectionism become all-consuming when this is our reality and we feel that we must live up to its impossible standards and compete with it. The beautiful imperfection of the human experience inspires creativity and makes life worth living. Perhaps imperfection is a way to push back on these ideals and A.I. while also reclaiming authentic expression. Imperfection is a lost art.

Why do I view imperfection as beauty in others but not in myself? Why do I hold myself to an impossibly high standard in comparison to those around me? Do I believe I’m not good enough or worthy if I’m not doing the most all the time? I really appreciate how this article prompted deep reflection about how perfectionism shows up in my life and how I can view it differently. I now see imperfection as beauty and art rather than something to be ashamed of. 

College is a never-ending list of assignments and tasks. They pile up fast and I exhaust myself trying to check off each one while also trying to complete them perfectly. Perhaps this exhaustion is a blessing in disguise as I’m forced to just get the work done whether it’s my best or not. I have an all or nothing mindset which often makes getting started on tasks difficult to begin with, but I’m working on it. I’ll often work on an assignment or task until it’s perfect in my eyes (which often takes hours). Sometimes when I submit something that isn’t perfect in my eyes and I get a good score, I’m surprised. What did I do to deserve that good grade if my work wasn’t perfect? I forget that I often perceive my work as worse than it is or worthless if I don’t feel it’s perfect. I forget that I don’t have to be exceptional to have a positive outcome. I forget that others will likely not perceive my real and imagined failures as strongly as I do. According to Artan, I’m still deserving of goodness even if I don’t earn it.

Since I’ve had extensive experience in college creative writing classes, I could relate to a lot of Artan’s experiences with perfectionism in her creative writing class workshops and while writing her first book. Like me, she puts a lot of pressure on herself and sacrifices her mental health for her idea of perfection. I find it interesting that others view my writing as excellent when I find it horrible. I wonder if my perfectionism and self-limiting beliefs are lying to me and holding me back. It can be difficult to view my work through the lens of someone else and not be so critical at times. Several creative writing professors have told me that the editing process never ends and it’s up to the writer to make the decision to publish and be okay with not going back. This has stuck with me ever since and I’ve tried applying it to my own writing and homework assignments. Artan also emphasizes that she’s learned that it’s best not to keep returning to her writing and obsessively scanning it for errors, and that once she publishes, she frees it from her mind.

I recently saw a pin on Pinterest saying “let it be unpolished and messy and true.” How wonderful! I never want to forget this line. This is not to say that one shouldn’t put in effort but that it’s okay to keep the humanness intact. Perfection looks different to us all, so really nothing is perfect or imperfect…it just is.

I’m not sure that I fully understand why I struggle with perfectionism or how to overcome it but this article definitely helped me to view it in a different light and reflect some more. This post was a little all over the place, but I hope you enjoyed reading about Artan and my similar yet different experiences with perfectionism. I attempted to write this without letting my perfectionism take over—to write and let be for my own mental health and sanity as Artan says. I don’t know how successful I was. Part of me believes and wants to believe that there is something beautiful and special in imperfection and remaining genuine and unpolished in a filtered world, but is it enough? I plan to make it enough in my small world. Sometimes I wish I could rewire my brain and stop obsessing over being perfect all the time. But it’s important to realize that imperfection is not the end of the world and that these stressors are small in the scheme of life. Perfectionism is not worth ruining my mental and physical health over.

Wishing you a happy Halloween if you celebrate! But remember, nothing is scarier than losing yourself to perfectionism. Stay tuned for a new post next Thursday! 

To read this article and check out rent free.: https://open.substack.com/pub/rentfreewithayan/p/your-perfectionism-will-not-save?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web