Perfection: The Way of 1000 Deaths

 

We're told we need to strive for something. To chase our dreams. To knock out our goals. But for the perfectionist, the handful of victories is marked in a slow unseen death..until its too late.

"Perfection is a Dead Man's Game, and I'm clawing at my own skin to reach the promised land."

Whats up y'all. 

I have something I want to get into the open, and I'm not sure how it will. Come out or how it'll be perceived. But if I'm not reflecting and writing then... Who am I really? 

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and I wanted to reveal a flaw of mine that has taken me many years to realize. I don't like it one bit, but I have to embrace this shadow, accept it, and reform it as I see fit. That's what life is about really. About enjoyment, creation, and the alchemy of making adjustments to how we live. 

But for me, there's something about this that hasn't clicked in a long time, because I'd been having less enjoyment and more making adjustments and molding how I've lived in the pursuit of perfection. 

No - this ain't paid advertisement for Cars.

I have an unhealthy relationship with perfection fueled by scarcity, indecision, fear, worry, and doubt rather than the good stuff like ambition, creativity, and curiosity. 

I've come to accept that perfection is getting every thing you want. Perfection is how you make your mark and stand out in the world amongst and AGAINST everyone else. Read that sentence again. If you're perfect, you'll have everything you want. You'll have peace. You'll be happy. You'll never suffer hardship ever again. Doesn't that sound great and realistic to achieve? If so, keep on reading. 

But what they wont tell you is - the path to perfection is no guarantee to such an end. There's failure and to me it's a death sentence. 

The Flaw of Perfection

 Perfection comes off as something we mere humans can achieve, and we can beat the odds by doing everything to stand out. 

We can win every contest out there. 

We can become self-made millionaires literally over night.  

We can have ageless bodies no matter how old we get.  

We can have so many dollars in our bank accounts.  

We can be the ultimate brand name in other people's households. 

We can have that impenetrable family dynamic. 

But we buy into the images of perfection like millions of punches to the head per second, and we fail to grasp that none of these are certain... And yet it's the way WE need to be.

To be seen as valuable.  

To feel worthwhile. 

To be appreciated.

To feel secure and comfortable without a stressful care in the world.  

To be SOMEBODY in the endless sea of EVERYONE ELSE. 

That's why I've driven myself towards the narrative of perfection, and I'm dying (faster) in the process. 

 

Perfection itself is a flaw. It's an unachievable concept. Something that always changes and evolves from mind to mind, person to person and it comes often with some of the most brutal scars that no one talks about. 

That is, until you met me. 

Lets take being first for example. What happens WHEN you slip up? When someone else takes the crown from you like you owned it upon inception? What happens when you have such a financial backing from business pursuits and the endless multi-task grind and hustle, only to have something fall short and crumble? You take a hit that throws you off course in a market you swore you were guaranteed success to do it how everyone else did it, or better yet, be so innovative that no one came up with your risky way of doing it to get that big payoff?

When our expectations, or those of others, are left unchecked against who we really are inside, we run the risk of ruin - one bigger than failure. 

Lets talk about it. 

Perfection is a form of Death 💀

 Before I woke up at 231am to start writing this, I heard this phrase in my head. 

"Perfection is a Dead man's Game, and I'm clawing at my own skin to reach the promised land."

Let's unpack that shall we? 

Why is perfection a dead man's game? 

Well, we start with what's expected of us. Society has its norms. We have goals that align or pad against what society says we need to do to be "among the best" or "better than the rest."  

We have our ambitions. 

We have what we see on billboards, ads, commercials, and our social. Media feeds of those that have IT down packed. 

With our suped up expectations and goals because society said to hustle, grind, drive, be first, be the best, stand out, carve your path, beat out the competition - when we fail to meet those, most of us FEEL the consequence of failure. We try we fail. Try again and fail. 

If you're like me, after so many attempts at it, to prevent going insane you say 'fuck it' and walk away to do something else, or you evolve what you're doing. 

Someone is going to slight me for saying 'I quit' a lot, and you know what's crazy, your judgement doesn't hold a candle to own inner critic. Hell - check out my first Blog I posted here on Complex Compositions. I Quit, and I felt justified doing it!

There's quite a few out there like me that ridicule themselves when things go awry. 

Why didn't I do it this way? 

Why did I chose this? 

Am I good enough?  

Why must I constantly to fail? 

We throw those voices in our head and loathe others telling us those same things or cutting us off with the blades of silence and disbelief. The support goes away when you don't look right. When you're not bright.  

If you're not succeeding you aren't performing... And that's just it. Perfection is a performance that if you aren't careful, it can kill you and everything you love about life.. And that's where I'm at. 

Nature itself has no concept of perfect. And yet we create the concept and wither away unnaturally. 

We "claw at our own skin to reach the promised land" - whatever the hell that even looks like. 

A Practical Example

Let's create a scenario. A perfect (ugh there's that word) example is our pride and joy of schools. All schools have metrics, groomed to prepare us (ahem- indoctrinate us) into the global work force. You perform better you get better, a play on survival of the fittest. You don't work you don't eat. Dog eat dog world. It's a reinforcement of the strive for perfection. Who the hell doesn't want to get perfect scores all the time and get the praise and admiration?

With that said,  look at the child in school, born in a household of scholarly parents and siblings. Diplomas and trophies everywhere in the home. Mom and Dad attend every PTA meeting, hell, they are even on the board. Might as well say they ARE the school. Child goes to school and unlike everyone else in his family, he or she fails to make grade in a class or two. 

What do you think happens here? 

Parents will be shocked, disappointed, fearful of the blemish and scramble to get their child help - as they should. But some even see this as a crack in the foundation. Their child has tainted the family legacy of excellence and flawlessness. The body keeps score y'all, and our minds are the conduit for those stressors. Keep that in mind. 

The child feels the blow the hardest often in unseen ways. They know their parents are shocked, disappointed, maybe even distraught. But the inner turmoil of what comes next and the damages done to their rapport and reputations with teachers and students around them, that deals more a blow than the failure itself. 

The child failed to meet multiple expectations. 

They performed poorly which makes it easy to say: I messed up... I'm not good enough... I'm a failure... My parents hate me... I let everyone down etc. Let them struggle and fail multiple times and that impact grows more over time. 

I know what some of you are thinking: Off of one failure? That's unrealistic. Well, that child needs to develop a growth mindset, right? Sure, it can help mitigate some of those negative feelings, but here's the thing, everything we do in life hits a plateau. Even a mind stops growing at some point and has to pivot and do something else. 

There's always something to do. Always more to grasp and achieve to look good, and yet all that drive and determination to look and feel good can, and often does kill us off like a fan-favorite character in a season finale because they wanted MORE and MORE to reach an unreachable and undefined expectation.

 How The Pursuit of Perfection Affects Me

Perfection, or the pursuit of it, has affected me in many subtle ways. 

For starters, perfection for me is sought out of fear and desperation. 

As I mentioned earlier, I want to be seen, heard, and appreciated. Pretty honest right? 

But sometimes, I'll come off ill received because I haven't been true to myself, and as a writer and creator, that's been a cardinal sin that eats at me. As a writer I've always hoped for and wanted many people to see my work and truly enjoy it and rave about it. 

But growing up, I doubted myself and what I knew I could do, and so I followed other people's blueprints and trends to try desperately to stand out. Why? Because I have a very small circle of people that get down with me. Honestly like 5-6 people. Even then I have to market it out, right? 

I tried the whole 3-6 posts a day on each platform... The commenting on everyone else's stuff... The sharing... The marketing planning that the gurus say will make you successful... And honestly, what I saw as perfection guaranteed wasn't. It was  (and still is) fucking exhausting. 

Even now, as I write this I'm like "how will this be received? How will I market this? How many reads is good enough?" And the sad thing is, in the back of my head there's this voice that's like "it's not good enough. You have potential. Gotta go bigger. Go harder. Stand out. Do it different. Show your ass with your word play. Do what the experts are doing. Throw money into your website. Sacrifice sleep for this. Hustle." 

Perfection is success bent up on steroids and speed and I'm tired of that shit, especially that my attempts are mentally versed as "It's not good enough for them." 

Someone out there will come across this and go "oh shit. That's me right there." 

Someone will appreciate the messes I make. But first and above all else I have to appreciate it. I have to enjoy it because it's me. It's mine. I am creating this realness and it doesn't have to be perfect aka like the gurus and everyone else that has massive followings. 

I also struggle with perfection when it's come to love, parenting my kiddos "the right way" and even doing manly shit like fixing things. 

I've become so defensive and impatient with myself and the process of learning and doing because I want to do it right the first time and not have to circle back and do it again. I have to do it fast and efficient because that's what a man - a father has to do! 

Why can't I be like other dads, lovers, men? 

Why can't I be confident and competent like them? 

Why do my kids give me a case of the ass like this when everyone else kids are obedient and listen and clean up after themselves like... Wtf am I doing wrong?!!  

My default answer to all of that is to step in dominant... Man up... And cease control in a choke-hold so all will be perfect - til it isn't.

 I must Evolve, Not Pursue

Those perfectionist expectations have me fucked up... And I'm now starting to question these and evolve my way of thinking. 

Evolving is a process. I don't need to be perfect according to someone else. To be real that's also why perfection hits so hard... Because... People. I want to fit in... And yet organically, I don't. I can't do what they or you do. I can only handle the cards I'm dealt or rather, deal to myself. 

Perfection is a concept. Not a way of life. Evolution proves that. Perfection itself is flawed because it always changes as conditions and expectations change.

Perfection can very easily represent attempt to control all aspects of fate to manifest unhealthy or unrealistic expectations. A way to hide the flaws and the human side of us so that we look good. When we fall short it reinforces the belief that we don't belong and that misery of others success is greater than our own attempts to achieve something for once. I know what this is like day after day. 

I have to learn not to be driven to perfection by way of my fears because it's been killing me. Fear, doubt, and worry have been my anchor pulling me into the quicksand of mass consciousness, and I don't want to drown anymore fighting to keep up a narrative that isn't who I want to be. 

After all, a diamond is it's most useful and beautiful when it is flawed, is it not? 

So I make a promise to myself today, to not BE Perfect in any way. To be flawed, to be feral, complex, and unorthodox. To fall and heal up even though I'm afraid at times to even try because of that choke-hold to get it right the first time so I look good. So I get complimented. So that I can fucking survive and provide for my family without missing a beat - cause if I miss, a beat we suffer. I can't go on living to die like this - like a zombie seeking someone else's brains so I plug in...lock in..and do what they do: Like, Comment, Subscribe, Hustle for all the accolades and job titles to hide the failures that still haunt the human psyche from generations past. 

Don't get me started early on my next drop about hating the struggle to be free - that's for another time.

I Am the Ronin that Writes, and I'm tired of dying at the hands of my own pursuit of Perfection because I've been afraid to NOT survive or thrive organically. 

From today on, I decide to live and be proud of who I am already.

#IAmRonin #OpenLoops #Belonging #Perfection #CompassChecks  

Notes from the field: This was a bit of a long one, but I'd been waiting to get this one out for a long time. Even my recent Tarot card as of yesterday, the 4 of Pentacles, mentioned being open to letting go and not being a prisoner to material possessions.  But any who, I have to ask:

What did you think of this one? 

Do you feel like you have perfectionist tendencies? How do you feel about that? 

How do you feel about control and pushing the envelope to achieve greatness? 

Whats your definition of perfection and how does it effect your life?

Please hit me up in the comments 😌. I'm grateful you're here with me yet again.