The ‘Perfect’ Illusion
“Perfection is boring. Getting better is where all the fun is.”
Everyone wants to be perfect or have something perfect. I tend to disagree. Perfection is merely an idea; it’s just motivation to keep going. The moment we call something ‘perfect,’ by definition, means it’s faultless, which puts a damper on what we want to achieve. Perfection can be applied to so many contexts that we might be here forever, but there are a few that we go through every day, and they are probably the ones that affect us most.
One of the most obvious ones is a score or a rank. At least for us students. We’re always pushed to get that perfect score. That 100%. But I don’t think that’s what perfection is. Pushing ourselves further to learn something outside what’s being asked, something that we can really apply is one step beyond ‘perfection.’ In some situations, that one perfect score isn’t satisfactory, which causes us to keep pushing to maintain that. And the moment we falter, we’re critiqued for not being able to live up to expectations.
We often look to find perfection in the time we spend with people around us. But the ‘perfect moments’ are almost never the most memorable ones. For instance, I’ve been close to a bunch of friends for over 13 years now. We’ve spent our childhood together, gone on several trips internationally, met countless times. All of those could be counted as perfect moments, but my favourite came in the most imperfect of situations. If you ask me to choose from the span of 13 years, I’ll pick a moment from just last year, during peak lockdown, when we just sat around and laughed at our miseries. Even with my family, with whom I’ve had 16 years of memories with, I’d say the best time we’ve had wasn’t in any way perfect, but when we sat in my grandfather’s room in silence, as we prayed that he’d beat cancer. That was when we were the tightest as a family, and today, that’s what matters to me. Striving for that perfect bond won’t get us anywhere, it’ll just drive us apart, and the sooner we understand that, the better. Perfect isn’t always perfect.
We meet so many people in our lifetime, and we always hope that a few will stick around. So many hope to find their ‘perfect match.’ While it’s a fascinating thing to hope for, I don’t believe one exists. There cannot be any way that people are so compatible that they have no opposing viewpoints, or ideas to do certain things differently. The real experience is having to deal with those setbacks and coming out of them together. Together, my friends and I consist of people who use humour, narcissism, and sometimes hypocrisy as defence mechanisms, but I would never want to replace them with flawless people. It’s these flaws that make us who we are, and if we just gelled all the time, friendship would honestly be boring.
Finally, people always urge us to be the “perfect version of ourselves.” But what is a perfect version of ourselves? I have no idea how one defines it. Everyone is different, and labelling something as ‘perfect’ almost insinuates that there’s only one right being. That’s like saying that there is one perfect fingerprint across the world because, just like fingerprints, everyone’s personality is unique. It’s not possible to be perfect or ‘completely free from faults’ because no matter how hard we try, there will be someone or the other who will disagree with us — which is why we shouldn’t strive for perfection but happiness. Because the moment we’re content with where we stand, we win the game of life.
The key to happiness is letting go of the idea of perfection. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t push ourselves to improve, but we should take out time to enjoy the little moments because those are the ones that count. In pursuit of the ideal of perfection, we miss out on what really matters and end up repenting it after there’s nothing we can do about it.
