Yesterday I experienced a dialogue with an old friend. We were musing about frustrations with our own versions of perfectionism, how to manage change, and the meaning of maturing. This sounds like an unlikely combination of concepts, but we did easily flow from one concept to another.
My friend, I’ll call her Wanda (not her real name), lamented her partially unconscious urges to control life situations so that events would conform to her desires. Life would then be, for her, ‘perfect.’ When events did not accommodate her desires, she felt anxious and down. So we talked through ways to root out this pernicious, negative, old thought habit. I noted that this habit was learned. I had observed the same behavior in Wanda’s mother.
First, I noted that Wanda needed to catch the automatic thoughts she was saying to herself. While we talked, I heard one of her thought-traps, She said, “since he did say he’d call, I thought everything was going the way it should.” Hmmm. According to whom is ‘the way it should’ decided? This is what I call a thought-trap. Behind this statement lies a judgment and belief that ‘things are going my way’, and ‘I am in charge.’ Catching these thought-traps is hard. But with awareness, one can learn to note them at earlier and earlier steps in a thought chain. And then gradually chip away at old thought habits that can hurt oneself and others Thought chains start almost unconsciously, then another thought builds on the first and so on, until one arrives at a probably skewed perception of a situation. Another term for this is the ladder of inference. (https://thesystemsthinkers.com/the-ladder-of-inference/) I shared that one trick that I use to manage my perfectionist tendencies is to allow it in one area of my life, my art making. I unabashedly try to do my best, no half measures, in my painting.
On a larger scale, this struggle with the perfect scenario also runs into the inevitability of change. Perfect implies staying the same, no change. Of course, that’s impossible. Each day is different from any other. Seasons transform into other seasons. Acknowledging the cliché, change is the constant of our lives. I pointed out that living with the reality of perpetual change, perfection is not only not possible, but antithetical to the reality of change. My friend added that to mature, or change in a more ‘adult’ direction, was also part of the deal. We decided that maturing is our work, so that we can live with and manage ongoing change.
Along with some thoughts on managing the pitfalls of perfectionism, I celebrate the importance and joy of having someone I trust enough that I can dialogue with her freely. These exchanges support and encourage each of us on our paths to greater maturity.