The Battlefield of Self
During the past year, I’ve become keenly aware of a “tragic flaw” in my character. Oh, I knew it was there long ago. I would never have denied it. If you had pointed it out to me, as several folks have done, I would have agreed heartily, laughed about it...and then continue in my enslavement to it. It’s one of those traits that’s so wrapped up in your personality that to try to do away with it seems like suicide because you don’t really know how much of yourself you might kill with it. Besides, it’s something that only manifests itself under certain circumstances and in certain company and it certainly doesn’t hurt anyone. That last point of defense is probably the most misleading because I’m beginning to recognize that the one it does in fact hurt is myself.

I’m speaking of a nasty strain of perfectionism that has rooted itself deep within my interior. Maybe that’s disappointing for you to hear...you thought I was going to confess truly foul sins. If that’s the case, you must not be a perfectionist. If you were, you’d know the burden of trying to live your life while constantly engaging a nagging, perfectionist mindset. Nothing is good enough to truly satisfy, no task is ever completed to the standard you have set, and—for me, this is the worst—the disappointment and letdown of not exceeding expectations comes with a heavy dose of guilt...guilt for not achieving and guilt for being such a blasted perfectionist. It’s inescapable.

I haven’t done much research on perfectionism—we’ll leave that to the psychology folks—but I have come across a few interesting viewpoints. One writer, whose name I cannot identify because I only have a photocopy of a single page within a larger work, associates perfectionist traits with conditions such as chronic anxieties and irrational phobias. I can see how this works. Perhaps many perfectionists have a fear that they won’t do “good enough.” So they’re always anxious, walking on eggshells, wondering when the hammer will fall. Likewise, as a phobia, perfectionism may affect some as a fear of failure. Hence, we see people working themselves into a panic over seemingly trivial situations. It’s hard for me to see myself in either of these places, however, because frankly, I’m also pretty confident in myself. A lot of the tasks in which I involve myself are things that I think I’m good at. I don’t expect failure at my job because, honestly, I think I’ve got a good handle on what I need to do there.

The book that I’m currently addicted to is called The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. He’s a great, contemporary Christian thinker, and he’s a tenured professor of philosophy in California. Those two things add up “major credentials” in my estimation. In chapter four, Willard sneaks in some commentary on “the perfectionist” during his examination of the Beatitudes. It caught me off-guard, and I’m still deciding whether I completely agree with the interpretation, but it intrigued me nonetheless:

“And then there are the pure in heart, the ones for whom nothing is good enough, not even themselves. (‘Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.’) These are the perfectionists. They are a pain to everyone, themselves most of all. [...] They endlessly pick over their own motivations. They wanted Jesus to wash his hands even though they were not dirty and called him a glutton and a winebibber.

“Their food is never cooked right; their clothes and hair are always unsatisfactory; they can tell you what is wrong with everything. How miserable they are! And yet the kingdom is even open to them, and there at last they will find something that satisfies their pure heart. They will see God. And when they do they will find what they have been looking for, someone who is truly good enough.”

But until the kingdom comes, here I stand with my unquenchable inner drive toward...who knows? Toward something better than the last time, I suppose. And, you see, this is where perfectionism takes us. Because it is unquenchable, unsatisfied, always reaching with clenched fists, it is a psychological equivalent to greed.

We usually think of greed in terms of wealth, the Scroogian propensity for wanting more and more things—not for need, but for desire. If I take something simply because I want it rather than for any value that it could give me, I am not bettering myself or anyone else. Additionally, the thing that I have taken is now serving no practical purpose to accomplish good tasks. Greed is so devilish because it strips good things of their goodness and because it exercises that thing inside me that must have.

Though perfectionism does not normally involve wealth, it most certainly exercises the same must have reflex. As task after task and project after project are completed for the sake of completing something well, we perfectionists are continually unsatisfied, and sure enough, our good tasks are even stripped of their goodness in our own eyes.

I don’t have a final answer to perfectionism. If it were that easy to solve, there wouldn’t be so many of us walking around with the problem. I do like the Willard commentary, especially in context of his overarching theme—that the kingdom of God is among us. Maybe we perfectionists don’t have to wait for the kingdom of God to come...maybe it’s already here. After all, that’s what Jesus proclaimed. And if we take his word for it, maybe we’ll start to see that there are more important things to be concerned over than our next project.