The Quest for Perfection by Heidi Hörnlein

HAVE NO FEAR OF PERFECTION - YOU NEVER REACH IT (Salvator Dalì)

History tells us that humans have always searched for perfection in their doing, thinking and being. Perfection is an ideal in our heads , where we want to arrive, sooner or later. But nobody really can define and know what “perfection” really is.

To me it seems that perfection is mainly seen as something we SHOULD go towards or be already AT, and it is mainly characterized by the fact that we miss it, that we are NOT there – whatever THERE means.

Nowadays people make a distinction between the physical world, where perfection is simply impossible because we are living in an ever evolving universe where nothing comes to a final conclusion. Then there is the spiritual world which claims that “everything is perfect just as it is”. Wow. Yes, in God’s eye the world and the Universe might be a perfect place and our enlightenment experiences FEEL perfect, give us the insight into an infinite abundance where nothing is missing – since everything is “perfect”.

Using this spiritual idea of “Perfect” in our human life is not really very useful – and leads us into “perfectionism”, a psychologically very unhealthy way of living. Most of us are caught in that, more or less, and thus we, not the world or other people, often drive ourselves crazy!

Perfectionism is the endless striving of people to become better and better - and eventually perfect. Only the goal of being perfect is important – for instance: never make any mistake, be the best of a group, never be affected by a difficult situation, always be in ‘perfect’ control of oneself. Whatever we have already achieved in life is NOT important, because it is not yet perfect. So we need to dismiss it and blame ourselves because, after such a lengthy endeavor, we are still NOT PERFECT. Life becomes a hustle, a race filled with disappointment, pain, sadness. No fun allowed, as long as perfection is not reached. We live in a constant expectation of the future and what it will bring to us – but what it never will, as perfection just is not possible -, and we completely forget to LIVE our lives, right now in the present.

To be able to live fully we would need to give up perfectionism. This idea is threatening to many people because they fear they might simply disappear or dissolve when there is no constant pusher behind them, no blamer and shamer to keep them on track. Habitual perfectionists like myself fear to lose control over our lives, to weaken and die because we wouldn’t do anything any more without this demand for being perfect.

Now, what I can tell you is: we don’t perish and die! When we have given up wanting to be perfect, we become human, fully human, and we get the precious possibility of opening again to life, to feeling, to curiosity, to the fullness of experience. We might no longer do the things we had done before, that is true. But we do the things we really like to do – and do them with a never ending energy and enthusiasm which we had never known before. We open up to our innate creativity and intelligence, we change completely our way seeing our lives and the world. We welcome errors and failure because they alone allow us to learn. Now we really have the chance to become ‘better’, as this is the natural way of evolution. And we live an openhearted life of satisfaction, fullness and acceptance.

DON'T CONFUSE EXCELLENCE WITH PERFECTION