“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you insane your whole life.” ~ Anne Lamott
I’ve long told myself that the week we have a “perfect” paper will be the week I quit, and just about every week I think I’ve nailed it, only to find some error — sometimes egregious, sometimes minuscule — has slipped by. Then I mutter a few unladylike words and prepare to tackle the task all over again. My goal may be delusional.
Perfection, you see, isn’t real. Even if something is perfect, it stays that way for only a millisecond. Ask anyone who just cleaned the kitchen or finished the laundry, only to have someone emerge from a back bedroom with a stack of dirty dishes and a basket of dirty clothes. Laundry, in fact, is never really finished, because the clothes you’re wearing right now are next in line for the wash and therefore technically dirty.
There are no perfect people, despite what social media tries to sell us. There are no perfect religions, either, because humans are involved. The same argument holds true for governments, organizations, books, paintings, software programs, apps — you name it. The best we can probably hope for is Mary Poppins’ standard of being “practically perfect in every way,” and even that is a stretch.
The whole notion of perfectionism is flawed. Who gets to decide what — or who — is perfect? Is it the person with the most authority, power, privilege or money? Are they perfect? If not, they don’t get to decide.
If you want to look to Scripture, the word “perfect” in the original languages implies the fulfillment of a thing’s potential. In other words, something that is fully mature, completely developed, whole and complete. That’s a far different take on perfection than the one most of us let drive us to distraction in daily life, but it’s also one that might actually make us better humans.
Instead of chasing perfection, maybe the better goal is wholeness. Whole people still make mistakes. Whole lives still get messy. But there’s room in that kind of striving for grace, honesty and growth.
