The Delusion of Perfectionism

I remember a time when I was a small boy, when my father praised one of my creative projects, and I proudly stated "I'm a perfectionist". He quickly replied that there are a lot of problems with being a perfectionist. This puzzled me at the time. What could be wrong with always wanting everything to be perfect? It was as if my father didn't understand the value of perfection! How could he be so dense?

I pride myself on being a quick study, and it only took me 30 years or so to understand what he meant. While those 30 years were a very enjoyable part of my life, they would have been vastly more enjoyable if I understood this when I was 8. So in the hopes that I can help someone else suffering from this paradoxical affliction, someone who might be an even quicker study, I'm sharing what I have learned here.

On the surface, perfectionism seems like an admirable, even noble attribute. One could almost describe it as a calling. Surely if everyone was a perfectionist it would eliminate all deficiencies in the world and we would have a beautiful, Utopian world. This was the source of my pride in declaring it to be a part of my self-perceived identity all those years ago.

As with most things, perfectionism can be beneficial when taken in moderation. By being able to imagine the perfect solution to a problem, one can often create a better solution. However, any true perfectionist knows that moderation is a cop-out. The very term implies the accepting the presence of some vile defect. That will never do! A true perfectionist must agonize over and rail against every deviation from the ideal, no matter how small. A true perfectionist must live in a state of perpetual frustration...after all contentment must be a sign of complacency: there must be a deficiency around somewhere with which to torment oneself!

So the most obvious problem with perfectionism is the burden it places on the poor perfectionist. It completely precludes any but the most transient periods of satisfaction. It mars every pleasant experience with nagging compulsive judgementalism. One would think that this in itself would be enough to cause everyone to abandon perfectionism. However, abandoning a philosophy because it will cause perpetual torment smacks of intellectual dishonesty, and since perfectionists tend to be hyper-rational left-brained thinkers, abandoning their self imposed torment is not an option they can consider.

My personal emancipation from this seemingly inescapable pit came as a completely unexpected side effect of meditation, and exploration of Buddhist and other eastern philosophy. I strongly recommend these to anyone who feels that my descriptions of perfectionism above fit them. However, I know from personal experience that hyper-rational left-brained thinkers (as I was) will usually reject such approaches without giving them an honest try. Now that I've escaped the pit, I can see some perfectly rational and intellectually honest escape routes that may be useful to those unwilling to try the antidote that worked for me.

First, lets examine the concept of perfection. What is it? One view might be that it is the end-point of a continuum; the logical termination of the sequence bad, mediocre, good, excellent, perfect. I think this is likely the view held by most perfectionists. There are two profound problems with this definition of perfection.

There is a qualitative distinction between the word "perfect", and the others in the sequence above. The difference is that all of the other words may be used to describe things which exist in the real world. On the other hand, nothing in the real world is truly perfect, in the view of the perfectionist.

There's a second reason why "perfect", at least as a true perfectionist would define it, does not belong in the set above. That is that all the other words are inherently subjective. If you think that "perfect" is also subjective, you're not a perfectionist. To a perfectionist perfect is an absolute, and therefore an objective ideal. This hints at another pitfall of perfectionism which I'll expose below.

The ideal of perfection is necessarily an unrealizable abstraction. This is for a very simple reason: it overlooks the inevitable trade-offs between different attributes which must occur in the real world.

As an exercise, lets imagine a perfect car. It would go 1000 km/h on 1 liter of gas. It would be perfectly safe, with zero fatalities or injuries, even when crashed at full speed. Obviously these properties are physically unrealizable together. Let's temporarily suspend disbelief and imagine we could build such a car. Now, you can have it for just $1 billion! Would it still seem perfect? Obviously, there is a multi-faceted trade-off here, where you can have one or two properties maximized, at the expense of others.

This is where the subjective nature of perfection comes in. Each of us will have our own perspective as to the ideal trade-offs between the different properties under discussion. That point is our personal definition of "perfection". If you think about it, this definition of perfection will even shift with time and context.

It is not that either the subjective or objective definition of perfection is better. They both have their place. The issue is that perfectionists confuse the two. They take the absolute, abstract ideal of perfection, and treat it as a personal measure to be applied in the real world. This is the cause of the perpetual frustration experienced by those afflicted with the terrible delusion of perfectionism.

Eastern philosophy addresses this pathology directly with the idea of accepting the world "as it is". There's nothing enigmatic or mystical about this, it means exactly what is says. There are things that you can change about the world, and times when you should change them. However, there are certain immutable facts, and there are times when things are perfectly adequate as they are. If you can stop judging everything around you, it opens the door to enjoying life.

Lets take a simple example: imagine you have an everyday apple. If you're a perfectionist, you will no doubt be able to identify a number of flaws that are deviations from the perfect apple in your imagination. So you're comparing a real world entity that can nourish you and provide tangible pleasure to your senses, with an remote abstraction that exists only in your mind, and you're making the value judgement that the abstraction that doesn't actually exist is better. How absurd!

So if you suffer from this delusion as I did, free yourself. Realize that you're confusing the abstract with the real. Accept that unavoidable tradeoffs must be made between the desirable properties of anything that exists. Allow yourself to experience the joy of what is, instead of agonizing over what your delusion tells you "should be".