The Devil of Perfectionism

So already, when a word comes up in multiple places in a short period of time, I pay attention to it. Last week, I read the word "perfectionism" in three different places, all of which warned people away from it.

 

In my experience, perfectionists invariably want something good, and want to do something good. What separates them from others similarly motivated is their belief that doing everything right, that doing every little thing "excellently" and to the highest standards, is the best path toward their cherished aspirations. 

 

Being perfectionists, they're often both comforted and intimidated* by the word "best." They're often accustomed to doing things very, very well, and they fall back on the old habit of striving to meet high individual standards when they don't know what else to do in pursuit of their goals.

The irony is that according to what I read, pursuing perfection is precisely what gets in their way. Too much attention to doing things perfectly often blinds them to other possible if less "certain" ways of working toward their goals. Forsaking perfectionism, they might find themselves listening more to others, thinking more about  others (as opposed to the idea of others); writing really rough, really terrible rough drafts; or wondering at length what the neighborhood crows have been cawing about all morning.** Forsaking perfectionism, they might find themselves in less self-inflicted pain, even if there's other pain to be felt.

So what kinds of problems and challenges make us nervous and uncertain enough to fuel our perfectionist tendencies? pull us out of our comfort zones? proclaim to us that we're not fully in charge? make us feel stupid and small, even lost--and sometimes, dangerous and harmful?

I wasn't surprised that Julia Cameron talked about perfectionism as counterproductive in Walking in This World: The Practical Art of Creativity:

In light of all of this, I am not sure where we got the idea that in order to be 'real' artists we had to do things perfectly. The minute we see the world 'perfect' . . . , spontaneity goes out the window. . . . . (78) ***

When the goal is creating art, regardless of the type of art, we absolutely need to play and to experiment--and need to appreciate that "Anything worth doing well is worth doing badly" (79). In fact, creating bad art is generally believed to be a prerequisite for making good art. And the good news is that bad art, generally kept out of sight and earshot of others, usually doesn't harm them.

 

The next place I saw a take-down of perfectionism was in Rabbi Daniel Klein's column on the Hebrew College website. In "Elul: Beginning the Journey Home," Klein encourages his Jewish readers to examine their customary approaches to "teshuvah (repentance/returning)," often understood exclusively as "the process of reflection on and assessment of our actions and direction in life, making amends for misdeeds, and striving to live better lives."**** Having recently read in "a contemporary Hasidic book on spiritual practice" that "proposes that the core of teshuvah is not the self-assessment elements that lead to behavioral changes," Klein reveals that he is focusing his teshuvah efforts this year on "living with and in response to the God we find within ourselves and, of course, everyone we encounter"--and encouraging us to consider doing the same.

 

Not that how to do that feels obvious to all Jews. But relegating self-assessment to a secondary position makes being Jewish less intimidating during the annual High Holiday season of God's "judgment."***** The good news, according to the book Klein read, is that “'The Holy Blessed One does not require perfection, rather that we strive to serve with all our might….'" When it comes to teshuvah, the combination of sincere, effortful striving and loving intent atones, brings us closer to God, even when it doesn't yield "results." 

And that's the purpose of teshuvah: "reconnection to our unconditionally loving Source."  The key word is "unconditionally"--not conditioned on our achieving certain behavioral standards--which is not to say that we shouldn't strive and that we won't feel "regret for and sadness about our misdeeds." But perfectionism misses the point.

It misses the point in schools, too, where education--students' learning itself, students' coming to trust in their capacities to learn--cannot transpire outside of the relationships among teachers and students, each of whom bring with them each day the realities of their "traditional" positions in schools and society. And it misses the point in schools in which primarily BIPOC****** (black, indigenous, and people color) student groups, historically systemically deprived of the same quality of education as their white peers, are taught by white teachers.

 

I mention this because the third place I saw a critique of perfectionism was in From White Folks Who Teach in the Hood: Reflections on Race, Culture, and Identity, co-edited by Chris Emdin and sam seidel. Unlike so many educator critics who pick up their pens to call out the failures of school policies, political leaders, and other educators, the educators whose essays appear in this book put themselves under the interrogator's spotlight and share personal painful, discouraging educator moments. These moments led them to understand that their commitment to social justice and educational equality, especially as pursued by questing after mastery of their teaching craft--teaching perfection--could not make their whiteness a neutral reality for their students or themselves.

 

In the book's first essay*******, Maya Park discusses how, as a first-year teacher, she came to view "my imperfections as a teacher as inseparable from my racism," which led her to embrace perfectionism as "my tool against racism" (4). After a particularly disturbing and probably harmful interaction with a student, she concluded that "To pursue perfection was to dehumanize us both" (6). Needless to say, she needed to try something different; and she did.

 

In a later essay, Adam Seidel also explores the temptation to resort to perfectionism, even when it doesn't seem like the best response to a perceived problem, because what a better response might be seems vague and potentially self-incriminating. Seidel describes a moment in a summer staff meeting when, instead of trying to make sense of some disturbing data about the college graduation rates of their former students, the teacher group recommitted to their usual approach to preparing their students for success in college: "we are going to have to work harder to make sure our lessons are vigorously prepped and practiced, our school systems and expectations are tight, and we build a culture that celebrates academic achievement" (128).********* In a nutshell, they said to themselves, "Let's get even better at what we're always trying to do better rather than even think about doing something really different."

"The Man Who Swallowed a Bird" by Scott Ketcham

But Seidel recognizes the problem with this: "we
were working to turn passion into a pathology--one that builds on a foundational belief that 'better is good enough' or more specifically that 'better than is social justice,'" which he comes to understand "in the context of white supremacy" (129). In light of this realization, Seidel changes his behavior in his own classroom: "on my best days, I shifted my practices, hovering above my interactions with students, listening with a closer ear to my language an how power and whiteness were held between us" (129).

But he doesn't quite know how to lead his staff to the same realization and to co-created shifts in practice that might lead to "true" educational quality and social justice. Toward the end of the essay, he explains, "I wasn't confident enough to try and be wrong. The stakes feel obvious now, and I'd like to think I would do things differently if I could go back, but whiteness and power and perfectionism were holding me back" (130).

Adam is my former student (as is his brother sam), and it pains me to read about his "shame and fear" (130). But I so admire his courage in "going public" with his story of coming up short and regretting it in retrospect. And I also know that his sharing of his story, along with his analysis of what was operating inside of and around him, and his feelings about it then and now, is an act of leadership that encourages the rest of us to be brave enough to stumble into this difficult problem space with others and be as genuine and unguarded as we can be. Again, perfectionism is not the answer, and when it becomes the comfortable fallback when we don't know what else to do, it uses up the valuable time and energy that could be devoted to a critical problem.

One of the biggest problems with perfectionism is that it's too often accompanied not just by disappointment, but by crushing self-loathing.********* There's work to be done--whether it's the work of making art, doing teshuvah, or doing right by one's students. Self-critique must necessarily be part of that work at some point. But this is where Julia Cameron again comes to the rescue, often reminding her readers to "Be gentle with yourself while you grow accustomed to your new mental and emotional terrain" (Cameron, 141). In my experience, the devil retreats when the pressure to be perfect dwindles, then disappears. After that happens, the real work can be done, even if it takes a while, is often discouraging, and almost always refuses to conform to a linear path.

 

* Illustrations and quotations about perfectionism accompanying the following: MacNaughton, W. (2024, April 14.) On perfectionism. DrawTogether with WendyMac. https://club.drawtogether.studio/p/on-perfectionism-69a

** Photo included within the following blog: Petrak, C. (2014, March 4). A murder of crows. Tails of birding . . . and things with wings. http://tailsofbirding.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-murder-of-crows.html

*** Cameron, J. (2003). Walking in this world: The practical art of creativity. Penguin Random House.

**** Klein, D. (2024, September 1). Elul: Beginning the journey home. Hebrew College. https://hebrewcollege.edu/blog/elul-beginning-the-journey-home/

***** Original drawing accompanying Green, E.C. (2021, March 5). The triumph of teshuva. Times of Israel. https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-triumph-of-teshuva/

*(6) Screenshot of photograph included in the following: Chatterji, R., Campbell, N., & Quirk, A. (2021). Closing advanced coursework equity gaps for all students. Cap20: The center for American progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/closing-advanced-coursework-equity-gaps-students/

*(7) Park, M. (2024). Can we water ourselves and our students at the same time? In Emdin, C.& seidel, s. (Eds.), From white folks who teach in the hood: Reflections on race, culture, and identity (pp. 3-11). Beacon Press. 

*(8) Seidel, A. (2024). Much like all of the last. In Emdin, C.& seidel, s. (Eds.), From white folks who teach in the hood: Reflections on race, culture, and identity (pp. 125-130). Beacon Press. 

*(9) Photo accompanying the following: Sheryl. (n.d.) Say goodbye to perfectionism, and unleash your creative genius. thecreativelife. https://thecreativelife.net/goodbye-to-perfectionism/