Meditations on being
Perfect
The other day I attended a workshop dealing with Anxiety in
Youth. I see so many students suffering from anxiety and depression, and it
feels the number grows every year. I learned a great deal of practical
information, but one thing in particular was most illuminating.
I have always wondered where the desire for perfection,
which causes a great deal of anxiety, comes from. I used to believe it arose from the way parents
raise their children, and supported at school by teachers who emphasize
excellent results. I had learned that
emphasizing effort over grades and final results would combat a drive towards
perfectionism. I also believed that
supporting mistakes as an opportunity for growth could also be a powerful
antidote, but I have since learned that it is far more subversive and
complicated than that.
My friend, a hypnotherapist, has taught me that some people,
more than others, are greatly impacted by subliminal messages, so to them it
matters more what they see and sense than what you say. I think that is where the old adage, do as I
say; not as I do, comes from- in hopes that the ideals we communicate are being
followed, rather than how we actually live our lives. But unfortunately, kids
seem to learn from what we do far more than from what we say. I remember my first year teaching, I would
tell my students to speak nicely with one another, and one day I saw them all
shushing a very loud student in an almost aggressive way. It jarred me as I realized that I shush this
boy! And I must be shushing him in this exact way, why else would 5 kids all be
shushing him in the same exact way? We
are a product of our environments and learn so much from what our parents, teachers,
and society models for us.
And, sadly, the greatest thing we are modeling, as a society
is perfection. We are all striving to be
better versions of ourselves, through our diet, exercise, home renovations,
etc. Just look at social media, those
who appear perfect have the greatest number of followers. We are a society obsessed with
perfection. And it is causing us to feel
more and more anxious and depressed, because perfection is unattainable.
While sitting in the workshop I realized that although I am
not “that parent” (that drives her kids to tutoring so that they can achieve
straight As) or “that teacher” (that gives a public prize to students who
achieve 100% on tests), I still grapple with my own desires for perfection. I
do want the house neat and tidy all the time, because people in neat and tidy
homes are always so happy, right? Well, at least they are on TV and in
magazines, so I want that. I also love
it when my nails are done and I am slim and trim. I look like the happy girls in magazines when
I achieve that goal, which means I too am happy, right? I realize that the
answer is no. But subliminally I have
been trained to think this way.
It takes conscious effort to consider the root of my
happiness, and when I do, it is never because I am my goal weight, or that my
house is clean, or that the tiles and grout in my kitchen are perfect. Those
things do bring me happiness but that happiness is fleeting and pretty shallow,
to be honest. It is not a high-impact
long lasting joy at all. What truly brings
me joy is my attitude, my health, my family’s health and happiness, and the times
that I am consciously aware of the fleeting gift of the present moment.
The workshop made me realize that all my hurried cleaning in
my classroom and at home sends my students and kids the wrong message: everything must be perfect to be good. I also realized that putting myself down for being imperfect (which I have been know to do in
front of my kids!) is really poor modeling!!
So, I vow to show everyone in my midst that I embrace
everything that is imperfect; because I am truly getting tired of the anxiety
it causes us. It makes me sad that we
are raising a whole generation of nervous perfectionists because we have not
realized that perfection is killing us! A recent study states that people eat
poorly when they are feeling badly about themselves- we eat poorly because we
feel bad about how we look. Striving for
perfection is literally killing us!
So, let’s stop feeling bad about not being perfect, and
instead embrace it because as the imperfect Gods of Egypt used to say: A
beautiful thing is never perfect.
