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You Don't Have To Be Perfect

Posted: Saturday, April 15, 2006

by Joseph Jagde

Let’s do it perfectly

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Ironically, perfection might be a flawed concept for you and me. It might be the last thing standing between you and what you want.

The pursuit of perfection probably results in more cancellations than anything else. It’s a good excuse not to.

There is a lack of recognition as to what is perfect. I am seeking perfection but I couldn’t recognize it if its winds did come in my direction.

I might begin to realize that I am putting a premium on perfection. But I might consider whether this is where I want to put my premium and if it best serves my purposes and designs.

I am thinking about what should be perfect for me but that might leave some important things relatively out of sight. I could also think of what would be big for me. If I could do this or that, it would be big for me, regardless of whether I could achieve actual perfection.

As to what I identify and define as being perfect is it going to be there or is it never going to be there? I want to be a perfect center in the NBA, but since I’m only 6 feet tall I’m never going to jump the tap against the Shaq.

Perfection and its standards might be rising against the investigative process. I might be trying to raise my sights by investigating anything and at the same time, because I’m not sure I might be compromising my investigation by looking also for perfection. I want two boats to appear on the seas horizon when I just really need the one.

If I have a job or situation that I can in fact work perfectly, then that should be a red flag, a red flag saying that there is not enough creativity involved in this pursuit.

Perfection might take out the percentages for me. I am 50 percent interested in this. Perfection tells me I should be 100 percent interested or forget about it.

Perfection can result in an all or nothing mentality where we lose sight of both the gradations and elongations. Even if we get perfection for this moment, it’s not going to stretch out to infinity for us. In addition, a truthful look at any situation involves gradations and nuances that involve proper particularization of what we are seeing. The ease of perfection may be just another trap blinding us to the real.

I am looking for perfection or nothing. I have to have it this way, the perfect way or I will not have it at all. I am at the beach waiting for that perfect wave and I will consider nothing else.

I’m not far behind. This is a very positive statement and in some cases, it might be the proper view. If my potential as an actor is to be not far behind Ben Affleck, then maybe I should be in the movies. But sometimes when I am just taking in the view of perfection, I might not see that I’m not far behind.

I might be looking for my dream date, but if that doesn’t happen I might find another date that is not far behind.

I might be thinking about perfection and I might miss the next best thing. If I can’t get the best things or perfect things, I have the option of the next best thing if I can accept this. If I can’t get exactly what I thought I wanted, what is the next best thing?

Then I might not be perfect but I might be better as this or that. I might not be the President or the king but I might be better as schoolteacher, gymnast, runner, swimmer, and reader of books than many of my contemporaries.

Perfection can trip up the comparisons if I compare myself to perfection I might lose some sight and recognition as to what I still have, going for me that might not reach into the realm of perfection but might be an asset nonetheless that is still very usable. But, maybe you are in a comparable range to perfection. The old joke is when someone says, “ How are you doing?" And you answer, “compared to what, perfection?"

But the search for perfection is going to have the tendency of putting us on a comparison trip because what compares to perfection?

I might want to test capacities. I might even have the capacity to become a positive person and coach myself in that fashion. But I don’t know what my capacities are until I let myself find go through the finding out process so in this case I am not necessarily looking for perfection but just to find out what my capacities are in this or that.

No matter what I can accomplish, in the day, or in a given period, there is a lot that I am going to have to leave undone. Perfection isn’t going to get everything done because it just isn’t possible. I am dealing with limitations as to what can be done at the outset and all the way through.

We might be raising the bar a little bit too high by trying to things perfectly. . My search for perfection might be like running after the sunset instead of just taking it in as a moment in time. Whatever I can capture in the moment is probably not going to ring through the ages for me. What would and could form into a proper symphony for me. Not that we want to be passive, but the striving must have a course that we actually walk with some light at the end of some tunnel. Perfect or not can I go somewhere with this that is more contextual to who and where I am now.

The key point is that if we are going to work with the idea of perfection at all, we need to see perfection as not being a stationary concept. Perfection itself might show different faces. The new face of perfection will appear as things change. We will still need to make continued moves if we want to track with currents of perfection, sometimes these currents may clash, and we need to move realizing that we are tracking with more than one thing. To have any workability, perfection cannot be seen as a stationary concept. While your looking for perfection, you might miss your connection.

A key concept with this is also that the coordinates of perfection will move or change within the currents of perfection. The stations of perfection will change. As we patrol the waters of perfection, we need to look at around at the movements of the sea. The face of perfection might be changing.

What does perfection mean to people and how do they use the concept.

Perfectionism for some can result in absolutism. For them for things to be perfect it absolutely has to be this way. The focus must be absolute absolutely I must obtain this goal.

Perfection for some is making plans and following those plans to the tee. The blueprint, the outline, the plans, should not be compromised if perfection can be found. The basic problem with this is that who is too say that the plan was right in the first place or that other plans may carry equal or real viability. Or even more that the variables that are to be faced could be fully foreseen or contemplated. Or that I need to adjust my outline, adjust my plans, adjust my ideas as I travel further down the coastline.

For some perfection involves what is known. I want that established equilibrium, I want the known perfection. But wanting this isn’t going to get me this. What I don’t know dwarfs anything I can possibly know. How much of the future can I know from this moment? But if I am seeking perfection and correlate that with having to know, it might cost me the chance to seek the unknown and yet see it as exciting, as an adventure and possible holding some good or positive surprises. How can you derive excitement from the unknown and first want that visible perfection? I don’t have to see that unknown that way, but I could try to think of the unknown as something that might be good, and maybe this way of approaching things would be advantageous at times.

Then perfection might relate against the turnaround, against getting it back, getting on another track. Since I looked for perfection, I lost my way I might as well give up. How about the turnaround? I already lost perfection she sailed away, so I totally give up. However, the turnaround was still possible. If I only looked on more time, but I turned my back to the coast one last time.

Then I am looking inward, am I looking outward, where I am looking? Seeking perfection can result in an aggravated sense of self-focus and it can result it too much of an outward focus. I need to balance the outer and inner focus but my definition of perfection has me off balance there. For example, I should be socializing more and with people more. But I am waiting for the perfect time so I can present a perfect front and image. In the meantime, I am too inward in my focus and I am losing the balance of perfection in that way. I wasn’t able to balance myself to the shifting sands along my coastline. Those dunes of perfection were too high for me.

Then perfection seems to relate to limits. If I’m perfect, if I can find this perfection, then there shouldn’t be any limits there. Can I forget about my limitations? I need to keep them in mind if I am to chart a course that is workable. But really the perfection I am looking for is found within real limits. But some people start to feel the word perfection usurps real limitations.

And then limitations that might not be there are imposed by perfections demands. I think the perfect woman would also include being a super model. But then I could consider a woman who isn’t a supermodel, but not if I am looking for my idea of perfection. I am limiting myself to a woman with a given set of circumstances or characteristics. The perfect woman is 30 years old, so I limit myself to woman of this age.

This also ties up in not seeing what might be real abundance. I am looking for a perfect woman on the crowded beach. There is an abundance of woman on the beach, but because of my idea of perfection, I don’t see this abundance. I am looking for a perfect idea when there is a flock of good ideas out there. If things aren’t rolling out perfectly for you it doesn’t mean they aren’t rolling out for you.

Then I think the perfection takes on all the risk. I can skydive perfectly, I could surf the giant waves perfectly, but is this perfection I am finding take away the real risks of what I am doing. The risk remains right within the perfection. Or it could be just around the corner.

An example could be the apple tree with an abundance of apples, but only one perfect apple. Even if you find that perfect apple, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t lot’s of other apples on that tree.

The perfection is sought by some as some sort of monuments that cites some things or to have in my sight. But in the end, neither perfection nor imperfection is going to be left standing as regards to you and me.

Then some of us want to show perfection but we might end up with perfections mask. But then what happens if I want to take that mask off, and the truth of my imperfection is revealed. And then I might have made a mistake, I had the wrong interpretation of what perfection was, in fact I was perfect, but I thought not, so I hid that perfect self with what I thought was a mask of perfection but it was actually a mask of imperfection. The perfection I thought I was presenting with the mask, hid the true gem.

Then I might be looking for perfection and I can’t even tell. For me it’s not even a searchable characteristic. I can’t seem to search the interior. I am on this date, is she perfect, I don’t know? I don’t even have the tools to test for perfection. I am not a weatherman and I don’t have the barometers and I am not a perfection man because I don’t have those barometers, I don’t even know how to test for perfection.

An especially important idea that relates to perfection is pace. I feel like I should pick up the pace. I can’t be sure that a faster pace will bring me to perfection. It might be true but in other cases, I might be better off slowing the pace. There might be instances where I am missing out because I am operating at a faster pace. Other times I might be missing out because I am operating at too slow a pace. I might be moving to a slower clock or I might need to move to a slower clock. The increased velocity is only going to take me so far, I not going to the Moon anytime soon no matter how much I pick up the pace.

I might try to capture perfection at a faster pace, but it still might outrun me in elusive fashion. The symphony that will work for me might be found at another pace.

With a faster pace, it might be that I am compressing expectations into a smaller time frame or period. I confine my efforts to this time frame and this pace, where the eventual results might be found within a longer time horizon or a different pace. I might find my way on the next series of events. This might not have been my series and maybe things will find their niche in the next series. I’ll find my way next time.

If I had followed a fast pace to nowhere, I still want to pace myself for the next series, the next time, and have some left for that.

Or I might have driven myself right past my goals and what I want by following too fast a pace, and losing the eye of the observer. Alternatively, I get up drive for the sake of drive. I drive myself forward in something I don’t want or I am not interested in. I hate golf, but I practice all the time, why bother, then, save that drive for something you like.

I can work with perfection on a one-time basis. I’ll give this dream one shot, and then I’ll go back. I’ll try for an adventurous job in a foreign land for one time, or I’ll try to write one novel.

What happens also is we lose the partial sometimes when we look for perfection, if something isn’t perfect doesn’t mean we need to assign a zero to it.

There is the idea of a qualified perfection. If I rob a bank, I would want to do that perfectly, as Willie Sutton used to at times. But then some people might say that it is wrong to rob a bank and what does that have to do with perfection. We are talking about a qualified perfection. I still say that if I rob a bank, I want to do this perfectly. You might still disagree with my qualifier of robbing a bank as having anything to do with perfection. People can’t always agree as to what qualifies perfection. Usually when we are talking about perfection, we are assuming some qualifiers.

As far as perfection, even if it is there, I might not be able to get to it. Perfection might have a wider scope than you can reach.

Say for example, the ocean is deemed as perfect. You go to the ocean. It is so vast how much of it can you reach anyway. You go in the water, you can’t see to the bottom or the far distance. You take a cup and fill it with water from the ocean, how much of of this ocean have you been able to capture.

In the movie the Beach, Leonardo DeCaprio and friends have a map showing the way to a hidden perfect beach. But issues impose and ultimately he can’t have this perfect beach.

I could be perfect and see the perfection in front of me in any number of areas, but that doesn’t mean I can get to it. I look up at the perfect star, that doesn’t mean I can get there.

I go to the beach and in the distance, I see some perfect surfers waves. But between these waves and the shores are savage currents. I can’t get to the waves without crossing through these savage currents. I can’t get there without an extreme risk. I can go to another part of the beach where the waves are good, but not perfect. I can get to them and ride them with a fair amount of safety.

You get the Sunday Times. You consider every article perfect. But how many articles can you get to without spending the complete day with the paper. To read every article is really out of reach.

You go to the library. Lot’s of books you want to read cover to cover, these books are close to perfect. But you can’t get to every book in the library of Congress, even as a speed-reader. The perfection is right there, but the scope of it is too wide for you to actually reach. The perfection might be in the far away future or the distant past and you can’t reach it because it not there right now. You can’t see the perfect movie in 2110 at this point. But even if it’s right in front of us now, we still might not be able to get to most of it. Say there is a stadium full of close to perfect people at this game. Can you talk with all of them at this time? The perfection is there, but you can’t position yourself for all of it.

Another difficulty with using the concept of perfection is it can disorder our priorities. We consider what do we want to put up front. For example, I say I’ll only paint this picture if I can do it just about perfectly. Suddenly, painting is less of a priority.

Should I order my priorities on what I could do more perfectly. For example, I don’t want to date anybody unless they are close to perfect as a date. I want the perfect date with the perfect history, or I expect the person to not have a history, when everyone has a history. Or if she doesn’t have the perfect history she should have a perfect history retroactive to 1993. Anyway, I want some retro perfection in the least. At the same time, I myself am less than perfect. But I hold off in search of the ideal. But what happens is the whole issue becomes a secondary consideration, while it is possible that is should still be out front, a lead issue, even with the imperfection which seems to be present and seems like it might remain present. But I have subtly reordered my priorities based on wanted perfection. I brought my desire for perfection onto my scale of what is important and weighed what was important based on perfection, less perfection, or the lack of perfection. I would have kept my interest and search for perfection as a separate sphere from my ordering of my priorities.

Sometimes we feel bad that we miss perfection. Maybe we should also feel bad then if we miss something that is less then perfect, but still good.

The pursuit of perfection might involve a rush to judgment that just is not necessary. I can go into the situation without a need for rushing to judgment.

You say, I didn’t think this would have been perfect. Then you say, I thought it would be good, but I was looking for perfection. I would say, maybe you missed out on something good then.

I have put some things under the strain of perfections demands the weight of perfection is keeping me from moving with agility and breeziness into the future.

You would want your doctor, or someone who worked on the brakes on your car before you went down a mountain road to be a perfectionist. Would you want the engineer that designed your car not to be a perfectionist?

Maybe we wouldn’t know perfection if it was staring us in the face.

Realistically, when we are talking about perfection we are talking about being close to perfect.

Perfection may have a hold on you or you might have things on hold for perfection.

Here is the perfectionist phone call. I call you up, “ Hi, how are you" I have to put you on hold. “What for" I ask. You say, “I’m waiting for perfection". Okay, I’ll see you next century.

These people have things being held up for the perfection they seek. They might not even know it when they see it.

Because they are holding on to perfection, perfection has a hold on them. Just like a bank being held up and eventually robbed, they might be robbing themselves out of opportunities by having perfection hold them up. There has always been a link between the search for perfection and procrastination.

The perfections wait might ironically work against finding perfection. I’m waiting on perfection in this situation, which will work against the letting go process, which is necessary or desirable in some situations. While I am patiently waiting on this situation for perfection, there might be another situation I am bypassing which is much closer to perfection and much easier to deal with right from the beginning or get go. At least I can get a start elsewhere, while perfection wouldn’t even give me a place at it’s starting line.

You can only give what you can give. For example, my friend is a hairstylist. I want to give her business and I want to let her cut my hair once or twice a week. However, once I have my hair cut, it takes a month to grow back, so the best I can give her as a customer needing a haircut is a once a month visit.

We might join ourselves into some creative process and look for perfection at the same time. First, I might want to increase the creative level. The first focus as far as our designs should be on the creative process rather than the perfection. If we have our designs on perfection while also looking for creativity, we might end up getting frustrated and wind up inhibiting the creative process. Perfection if it comes might be later on, not right off the bat into the process. I should be able to bring a given style to a particular situation that may or may not be side by side with perfection. People may have different speaking styles, writing styles, acting styles, and painting styles, all which can relate to the creative process. The whole area lends itself to different styles. After all, if everybody is going to be perfect, where is there room for style? I could look for the perfect me.

Sometimes in looking for perfection, I might make the mistake of looking to hard at only one part of a bigger picture. I might be only looking at one little section of what could be a masterpiece of a great panorama. I don’t include other parts of what is or could be in the picture.

Perfection might have the feel of having immediacy for some people. They think they should find perfection right away. This might be the case but it might not. Picture the baseball player walking into the batting cage. It would be expected that they would need some warmup swings. If they complained to the fellow players about not hitting a home run in their first swing they would often say you just need to warm up. It’s obvious within the sport that this warm-up is needed in many or most cases. But in other situations we expect perfection right away and it isn’t as obvious that we aren’t being realistic about the similar need to warm up.

There might still be an area of near perfection that we can find. This might be similar to an area of excitement. For example, just seeing certain person of the opposite sex brings someone into an area of excitement, this could also be symbolic of an area of near perfection to this individual. Even though overall their relationships with the opposite sex have been lacking, there still remains an area of excitement for them, or an area of near perfection that they can even see. If we do see that area of excitement, we can be hopeful about that and this is an area we could potentially prize as near perfect if we can get to it.

I can look for links within these possible areas of perfection. I find just looking at this particular woman an area of excitement. Then I talk to her, and find her exciting to talk to. There is a link right there.

Links can be links to the contrary, which oppose perfection. I have been working in the software industry and things have gone sour for me and I am no longer interested in the field. I was never interested in the steel industry so I can link my current disinterest in the software industry with my disinterest in the steel industry which I have never even considered working in and then I can find it easier to put the software industry out to pasture as I link my areas of disinterest together.

What some people see as their flaws and imperfections, are actually characteristics that they would want back if they were taken away and they might even cherish these traits in the final review.

I was getting a haircut and the person cutting the hair, Rocky, was talking about the stock market and how some of the people that play the market are obsessed with checking the changes in the market and individual stocks during the days. Rocky said the he cuts the hair, checks it once and he is finished contrasting to those who are constantly checking their stocks. I told him of an article in the Wall Street Journal about a podiatrist who spend so much of his working day checking on his stocks during the dot.com boom he only half of his normal visitors for his practice that year because he got so distracted by his stock prices. This relates to the idea of perfection. Even if we get it, when can we let go on it and just check it over and reach a conclusion on our efforts. Can I just paint a perfect picture and leave it at that? Or do I keep on painting the Mona Lisa forever? That leaning tower of Piazza is still leaning.

Things will tend to tilt towards perfection or imperfection. It might be more useful to look at perfection as a tendency rather than something that can actualize or be an actuality in many or most cases. There will be tendencies or movements away or towards perfection.

Make believe that the sun is perfection and the earth moves towards or way from the perfect sun.

In actually however, for the people on the earth distance of the earth from the sun might be close to perfect in terms of climate. If it were a few million miles closer, it might be much to hot for the earth’s inhabitants. Ironically, the earth might be in the best position or perfect position in relation to the sun as it is now. If the earth was a few million miles closer to the sun, the ocean would be boiling and the surfing conditions wouldn’t be any good.

One of the things to consider in relation to perfection is the idea of defining what you are doing. If you are fishing with the seals near the North Pole, why worry about being the perfect leader of a corporation. If I am playing baseball, why I am concerning myself with the idea of being the perfect goaltender in the NHL? Define what you are doing.

The girl says, I’m going to get in tiptop shape for the summer and I’ll wear a bikini at the beach. She gets into tiptop shape, goes to a desolate beach and there is no one to see her. Implicit in her motivations for getting in tip top shape or close to perfect shape was that she would go to the beach and have an audience. She didn’t position herself correctly in relation to her prior motivations.

We see that while we seek perfection we must also position ourselves in relation to these motivations. This girl got into close to perfect shape but no one was there at the beach to observe her and she wanted an audience for her hard earned efforts towards getting in the best shape possible.

Then how do we position the factors? Look at all the factors you might have. You select a factor and work it to near perfection. Another factor you could have put in place or positioned yourself with was ignored. You might have pressed the wrong buttons or you needed to push the right factors and right buttons. You might have gotten perfection with the factor you choose but you didn’t pick the best factor.

For example, say your primary motivation is too make money in this situation. You work close to perfectly for this company for a year. After this year is up, you say you made 100 thousand dollars. But actually, if you push another button, such as being an actor or professional baseball player, both of which you were very capable of doing, the salary for either would have been 1 million dollars. So you actually paid 900,000 dollars for your choice. The one million you should have made minus the 100,000 you did make.

Another issue is that I have mixed motives, I have some more perfect motives and some that I consider selfish. To decifer your motivations you can look at the positions you ultimately want. I look inward and I find that my motivations towards women are from a playboy mentality. I hesitate in this area because I realize I have mixed motivations. But then I find myself on a trip abroad to a scenic location and realize I wished I had positioned this trip to where I had a traveling companion who was female to keep me company and share the enjoyment of the good scenery with. Within my positioning, I can see that there are other motivations at play that deal with wanted perfection. To have the perfect trip, I really do feel I need the companionship of women. Despite my mixed motivations that I have about women, from this position I realize that I can decipher other more perfect motivations that are at work as well.

Another example is I want to write the perfect novel. I think this is the perfect situation. I also want this to be a best seller for the purposes of making me rich. I call this an imperfect motivation. Do I let this imperfect motivation cancel all my efforts or at least let it cast a shadow on what I want to do. I look at these motivations, some are more perfect and some are less perfect.

But separate from this, where do I want to position myself. Like the girl who got in tip top shape for mixed motives, one of which was to show off at the beach, I still need to consider where I want to position myself. She went to the desolate beach and never properly positioned herself for the audience she hoped for. If she had positioned herself for the crowded beach, she could have reviewed her original motivations of having an audience then in relation to the actual hoped for position and then she could have gotten a more valid view of how mixed her motivations were and whether some of them in fact had links to wanted perfections. I see my motives are mixed, but I still want to position myself as well as possible. I may want the situation to meet with several motivations. As I consider how to best position myself, should I let what I feel is imperfect cancel out all perfection, or in fact everything else. I have a better chance of catching the perfect wave if I’m actually at the beach. So often I have to position myself close to the situation I want to break into anything that might be near perfection. Patience is important but I might be waiting so long that I’ll fall asleep on the watch and perfection will sail right by. I need to position myself for the gold, if that’s what I want.

Then say for example you are trying to work a situation perfectly and it is sliding in the other direction. You are paying a price that is only getting higher. Your continuing efforts are being cancelled out. If your goal is perfection, it might only get worse and you will be in fact further from perfection and pay a heavier price as time goes on. Forge ahead in something you are not enjoying and you will probably just get more of the same.

Another case might be that you are in a good situation, you are working it close to perfectly, but other things and other pursuits that you value are sliding in the other direction. Your pursuit of perfection in this one area even though it is going very well seems to have the cost of not properly attending to other interests, which are also important to you right now. You could set your lights with a wider beam.

Perfection also relates to likes and dislikes. When we refer to likes and dislikes, we can go over some of the particulars. I like the design of the boat, I like the speed of the boat, I like the viewing panel of the boat. We can refer to the particulars especially if we can’t seem to get a handle of the global scene of what we are dealing with. Those splendid corals of the sea have a particular fancy for me.

The particulars could also be negative in terms of my likes. How is this going to be a perfect job when I don’t even like a file, this file or any file that I’m dealing with.

In fact, I might be lucky if I can bring any positive frame to a given situation. The situation or circumstance has negative elements, connotations, or even outright chaos. The question is how can there be a positive frame to this, never mind even thinking of a perfect frame.

You could win, win, win, and win. But if you don’t mind what season you are in, you might not capture the new era. And you lose out that way.

Perfection identifies or helps identify a path I wish to take. The concept of perfection works as an identifier. It can be associated with exactness. If I get perfection, I am getting exactly what I want. However, if perfection means exactness to me, I put additional pressure on myself to find exactness in situations and circumstances. The exactness I want or expect might not appear and then I am lost. That search for exactness leaves me feeling lost, like I am looking for a needle in a haystack.

Who’s driving, you or perfection? Perfection might be outright driving for you or in might be a backseat driver telling you what to do. In the meantime you are trying to drive through outright chaos and perfection is yapping away at you. Then you feel you can’t stop for something the is tainted or even touched with imperfection but might serve your purpose in some agreeable way.

The search for perfection can end up being fueled by desperation. I am looking for a woman with a perfect head of hair, and everyone I am meeting has at least one strand out of place. If I lowered my expectations to someone with a very good hairstyle and maybe a strand or two out of place, I might feel less desperate about my search.

Another pitfall to a blanketing search for perfection is not having a watchful eye towards what is important, what is more important and what is most important. For example, you read a long article in the newspaper or an informative article or book on a given subject. At times, you might want to extract what is most important and then worry about a perfect read as a secondary factor. The same is true in a given situation, you are in a work situation and the more important thing might not be the job in front of you at this very second but the person in front of you who could form into a great long term contact on several levels. By focusing on overall perfection, you might be doing it at the expense of the hierarchy of what is going to be more important for you. You could compromise the ability to extract what’s most important for the given scenario by totally focusing on wanted perfection.

People sometimes look for a mark of perfection. This can result in distortions on the idea. Hitler was looking for the master race, the Arayans who would have blue eyes for one.

What we want to do is maybe look for the mark of perfection but no matter what don’t put that mark on ourselves. Try to paint the car a perfect red and leave the mark of perfection but don’t mark yourself as the perfect painter of cars. A mark with ourselves becomes a burden that is like that pair of clothes we can’t change or a hat we have to keep wearing. So whatever you are trying to do perfectly don’t mark yourself as someone who is perfect in doing this. You can travel lighter and switch modes easier if you don’t have to live up to some perfectionist standard that you have marked yourself as having.

Why does perfection always seem to play the part of the heavy? Maybe perfection is found also in the lighter approach or on the lighter side of things.

One of the ways of checking of what might have been perfect is looking back with the retrospective view. I have the benefit of looking of looking back and referring to my memory. What was most memorable for me in the past and what relationship do these memories have with the idea of perfection? Maybe what was most memorable for you was a moment. Or it might involve a trip with great scenery and in the meantime you did your job almost perfectly all year and it for some reason doesn’t seem that memorable for you. It may be that something I felt I did close to perfectly was most memorable but it my also be that something else that didn’t involve the pursuit of perfection was most memorable.

Within the pursuit of perfection, I can also see if I am being reasonable. The idea of perfection may or may be reasonable. If I am not the perfect person, then why am I looking for perfect people? I could ask, is this wanted perfection reasonable to even my interests? The perfection I strive towards might not be that enduring even if I can get close to it. It might not be sustainable in any case. It might appear briefly only to leave again. I can adjust my view of myself to see what actually gets me going. I might view myself as a very good and almost perfect golfer or a very good and not so perfect golfer. Sometimes viewing yourself as an imperfect golfer might seem a bit lighter to the situation and you might be more likely to play the game then if you view yourself as someone who should be putting up professional numbers but your not even close to that so you don’t bother at all with the game. Try to obtain a more reasonable view of the situation. Often the more reasonable view gets you to more obtainable approaches and outlooks. I am looking to be in any way reasonable if I try to pitch a perfect game against the Yankees or any team in the major leagues when there have been less than 20 games in the history of major league baseball that have been pitched perfectly.

Then perfection might seem to require an absolute focus. This may not always run in tandem with some other ideas that might be helpful. If I am having trouble in my pursuits, I might want to introduce variety into the situation. I could say no matter what I will induce variety in my schedule as in the long run I will need this. If things aren’t going well, the tendency might be to compromise variety and double up on specific efforts. But what happens is I might forego some things that get pushed out of the picture until I obtain wanted perfection. I will not play golf until I get that good job. I might find that years later, I haven’t played golf in years where if I had stuck with the variety idea under all circumstances, I could justify going golfing occasionally as something different and a variation from my routine and my walk towards perfection in a given area.

Another difficulty I might encounter is that if I make a mistake, a significant blunder in my pursuits, if I had been expecting perfection I might just stop right there. If I think I’m a perfect golfer and I double bogey the first hole, I might give up right there and walk off the course. I might be so bothered by the mistake that I focus on the mistake at the expense of continuing. The mistake is so counter to perfection, that I get discouraged and stop right there. The challenge might then be to keep perfection as an idea or ideal, but if I am finding real obstacles, I need to adjust my thinking so I can find a way to keep going despite my failures or shortfalls around me or that I encounter within myself. I can adjust to the mistakes and involve that adjustment into an approach that let’s me go on and forward if I still want to do that. Even if I feel the need to stop and beat myself up for what went wrong, can I recover into an adjustment that let’s me not make that a permanent stop.

Sometimes people in the pursuit of perfection either want it all or the gold or they say they will finish last. An example of that was in the Olympic ski jumps which involved flips this past winter Olympics. The American skier was winning after the first round but a competitor did some never done before twists in the competition. He had one of the 3 or 4 highest scores ever in the second round. The American went last and tried for an equivalent jump in terms of difficulty. He said he would either go for the gold or finish last and he ended up finishing last. He could have had the mindset of just trying for the Bronze and Silver and just tried to land a very good jump.

What happens is that sometimes we tend to look for perfection and if we don’t find it we place ourselves in last place or out of contention. But even with the imperfection, we are often unrealistic in placing ourselves last. Just because we aren’t first, doesn’t mean we are last. If I don’t win the gold, it doesn’t mean I’m still not very good.

I’m prejudiced toward vanilla ice cream. That doesn’t make it the perfect ice cream. Your prejudices don’t necessarily equate to perfection.

Perfection could represent a range. A perfect weight for you could be 180 pounds or a perfect weight could range from 175 to 185 pounds. A weight in that range will tip the scales for you into perfection. If you go into that range you have converged into perfection, if your weight goes outside of that range you have diverged from perfection. What you want is a more malleable concept or idea of perfection if we are going to work with perfection at all.

Optimal is the best or best I can do, which may not be perfect. Optimal and perfection might be interchangeable, but not necessarily or totally. Optimal tends to be situational. In any situation there can be the optimal, while in some situations I can’t get perfection no matter what.

In many situations, there is nothing beyond optimal. For example, I am on a sailing expedition along the coast. Suddenly something happens that sinks the boat, I give a quick distress signal, before I’m overboard. The optimal thing I can do is either wait for a hoped for rescue or swim to the shore. I am not going to get a perfect afternoon sailing now. Imperfection has been introduced into the situation. The best I can do is safely get to the shore now. There is nothing left anymore for me in this situation beyond the optimal. I seek to adjust to perfection only if I can actually do so. Perfection might not be present. I can have the optimal outlook for a situation. If I’m dating, I could look for the optimal person rather than the perfect person. After all, I’m not perfect myself. By saying optimal, I am giving myself different symbolism. Being an optimist gives me more options. Being optimistic ironically could involve lowering my sights to include more of the possibilities. What I am aiming for can be adjusted to less than or some other guess on what could be closer to perfect. I can expand my roster of opportunities. If I can handle imperfection, I might have more opportunities and options. Every single pointer might not be within the concept of perfection. You might be pointing towards doing something that is less than perfect. I can still proceed regardless of what the pointers are saying. I can try for the necessary adjustments to the changes, which are often in front of me. I might find myself on a somewhat different trend line. Can I bring perfection into sight? I think by expecting the perfect, I’ll find it but expectations can’t always see perfection either.

You want to enjoy where you are now, even if it’s less than perfect. Your in this stretch of coast, you might as well enjoy it. You want to use what you have which might not reach towards perfections mandates. I can’t always have everything or the perfection I wanted. Perfection can be a controlling concept. I want the control of perfection in this situation. Imperfection can exist side by side with perfection thereby giving you more options. I might be filtering my course through a belief system that demands something like perfection therefore I might not believe and see some real options or opportunities that might bring me some happiness. I had been controlling for perfection only. I can make some of my beliefs accessible to imperfection and free up some of my thinking. I can have freeing beliefs that don’t enslave me to perfection. This gives me more of a chance to work with partial views because ironically even if the situation is perfect I might not see it that way. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, either a perfect view or no view. I don’t have to be held to one section of coast that I perceive as perfect. I can rearrange my ideals to encompass more than just the perfection I seek. I don’t have to be bound to perfection only. Otherwise, perfection could have the effect of isolating me from some of my real interests.

I can section off my attempts at perfection. I will keep this section of the beach for perfection but I will also allow myself to go to other sections of the beach where I can be imperfect.

I can give myself partial credit as well. My goal is a 10 mile hike and I only hike 8 miles, falling short of my goal. I can still give myself partial credit for the 8 miles I did walk. And then I could even change my original goal in freedom to 8 miles and then I have full credit for the 8 miles.

There are some scenarios where I just want to get out of the situation. The key is just to get away. I don’t need to escape from this situation Then I might disagree with something at it foundations. Or I could never agree to this in principle. Then why set myself up to pursue this perfectly, to go all out, when I don’t even agree to this to start with? I could be the arguer of the perfect case for the wrong side as a lawyer. Which side is perfection on anyway?

But then we argue with ourselves. Maybe argue with yourself taking the other point of view, seeing all sides even that once sighted optimistic side which seems so distant.

The keynote speaker for perfection may not have hit every note. Our loyalty for perfection is beyond what perfection has done for us. When have you gotten that chance to dance with perfection anyway? Looking at things through the view of the perfectionist is like the scope of a small lens, it might be like peering through a keyhole, when there is a whole world wide window to view things through, a panoramic view. And this panoramic view works both ways, how much wider and higher is this window of reality which we are going to let in from the outside or look at from the inside. A friend of mine said, now that he is older the window of girls he will look at is wide and high, then when he was 20 he only would have the shallow view or narrow view of looking for a certain model type. His idea of perfection might have been wrong even then, to his own loss then. The view of perfection as the standard might not be the reachable realm, the available viewpoint, and the only existing approaches that will get us started or begin to get us going. I can scan the imperfect field perfectly with my naked eyes, by the way I notice a slight imperfection in your walk. Perfection is the standard that can be reached only if we get there in the first place. We can fine tune then. Yet the present doesn’t seem to be showing me this perfection. When is perfection going to stop by and show its face? I do have a perfect view of the imperfection show me this perfection. By the time perfection shows up, I will not be perfect anymore. People spend so much time looking for perfection that the time consumption soon exceeds the value of the perfection they might get to. We can free up some time towards looking for the perfect but this approach is on the watch of a ticking clock. The perfect idea can be found in an imperfect book. People have found elation in less than perfection. And sometimes perfection doesn’t get us there but tends to just put things off into a more perfect future, when I’m finally ready. Even if and when you find this perfection, will it echo into the future for you? I’m ready but you everybody else and the day have gone away. I could have brewed and imperfect tea for you and me. I can’t have a perfect swim in the ocean if I don’t get there, to the shore or beach. I might wait my whole life for perfection when I could have done something as opposed to nothing. I can’t have the perfect run if I don’t begin to run. I couldn’t have had the perfect date if I didn’t get the date. So first and foremost we need to get there. That is the goal of the first order, el primero. I can fine tune when I get there. It’s like finding the radio station. First get to the station, and then adjust the tuning. The perfectionist standard might be applied, but the standard itself might be paradoxical. My perfectionist standard might be applied beforehand may make the task seem more overwhelming, more monumental, more encompassing, and seemingly difficult and what happens then is that I end up bypassing the whole game. So by trying to be on the cutting edge, I’m off the edge, off the ship, out of the game. I ended up making the wrong call. The idea of doing it right, by almost doing it perfectly, is not even the bar we should be trying to leap over in many cases. The real challenge is just getting there. That is the real perfection.

Say you wanted to hear a speaker on a given topic. This is your call. It is really a matter of getting there on time and actually hearing the speaker.

The perfectionist standard doesn’t even come into play really, you want to hear this speaker, and you will enjoy hearing this speaker. In the matter the point of perfection is just getting there. There is no other major concern that this. It is almost a given that you will enjoy this speaker. So another one of the errors of the idea of doing it perfectly is that we are looking at things that already close to the category or idea of a given. It’s the greenest grass and I’m still looking for greener grass. I’m the King for life and I’m still running for office. It’s a given that you will enjoy this movie if you go to it. It’s a given you will enjoy the book if you read it. If you are enjoying a book on a page-by-page basis, it is almost a given that you will enjoy the remainder of the book, or it is at least more than likely. So the perfect thing to do is just read the rest of the book and not worry about doing it perfectly.

How about the perfect plan? When can you throw it to the wind? We can make plans of course and try to follow them. But try throwing a piece of paper or balloon into the rising wind. Try to predict its movements. We might be putting our plans into variables and conditions like that, our plans may be subject to forces affected by a multitude of changing factors and variables that might be as shifting as the wind. In fact a move into imperfection paradoxically can expand our choices, or at least increase our ability to peruse the choices. Good choices could still be in front of us if we stop stumbling over perfection, or getting stuck over what has formed into one idea of perfection, when there might be a million ideas of perfection.

The risk paradox and the quiz with this issue, is this or that the idea of perfection being present may keep us out the area we are trying to get into in the first place. We look at whatever is present, whether it is perfect or not. The standard of perfection seems to have been applied it actually became imperative like a dominating theme but subsequently became extinct, extinguished, because we just never go there. If you never go there, how are you going to experience any findings that might have been there of perfection? You may not have seen a sunrise in months, some of which could have been magnificent. We didn’t keep the fire going as to what we actually wanted to do.

The standard of perfection doesn’t have true application to all of the possible scenes and scenarios we could encounter. I have the perfect game, the perfect jump shot, but can I bring this with me in any useful fashion to the lounge chair on the cruise ship. The movie with only perfect scenes might be a short movie. The first standard should be a standard within boundaries that you can accept that will tend to get you there in the first place. If you have talent, things will take care of themselves. If you don’t have the talent to start with, and the call can be made on that basis, I’ll call it a day. And even if we are not that talented, that doesn’t mean we aren’t enjoying this to some degree. Can I play tennis without having to be the best in the world or actually striving towards this? But also if we have talent, we could look at this as something to which we could have some level or degree of participation in our talent.

When we carry around images of the presence of perfection, we should first consider whether these images are useful. You tell your girlfriend I notice a slight imperfection. How useful is that? Those images of perfection can be useful to help us propel forward or toward, or help us in our considerations and contemplations of courses that we can charter. But if these images act as additional weights, further discouraging us from a given course, it might as well be discarded for all the good it does us. It might be better to send this to the scrape heap of ideas. Imperfect images can also inspire us. Perfection’s presence is a nice neat concept that just doesn’t come across on every board and every listing. Even the perfect situation might not present itself perfectly. No matter how perfect you are, if you are still on a rotating mass that is rotating around a star 90 million miles away, with subjective movements where atmospheric conditions will prevail regardless of what you do perfectly.

You and me, we are always on the run. We are either running away or running from and towards. The run, indeed we have to make due on the run.

In fact people pay a lot of money just to be there, to be present at that game, that play, that movie or concert. Perfection can more relate to the immeasurable. But for many and often times perfection is more of a mathematical concept that does have application in engineering, construction and accumulation of revenue, working well often in theory but not always in practice. Of course it’s important that perfections standards are contemplated in building trucks, cars, bridges as so on. The manufacturing of a more perfect product will more often win the consumer and help the safety aspects of the product. But sometimes it seems we are putting the same standards to our maneuverings and ourselves as we put to a machine. Say for example you find out that one of use was a robot competing for the same things. You would say we weren’t on a equal playing field. We relate ourselves to robotic images or superman. There is no Superman, it was only a show. We can’t get there.

But even for the smartest to advance towards a degree of perfection, first get there, and we will test for perfection afterwards. But the prototype needs to be there. First get to the North Pole and then set out the gauges to test the conditions.

Should we look for prototypes? I think we could at times we could look at someone who we admire and see if we have similar traits that can also become operative. The prototype is representative of something you could actually get to. You could get there and it might be in the reachable range. For example, say we have admired a certain teacher and how she dialogues with the class. Maybe we have similar potential and could dialogue at a similar level. I doubt that teacher was ever actually perfect, but the prototypical model this teacher is presenting might be more useful towards giving a realistic example, rather than some perfectionist standard that doesn’t relate to any one person or situation that we already know or can find out about and is out of the orbit I can circle. You don’t look for the prototypical car among the prototypical giraffes. Compare within the proper range. If you don’t want to make any further attempts at perfection, you can adjust your prototype to look for the optimal. Thereby for any given course we might attempt, there may in fact be somewhat close examples that apply to us found within given individuals that we could observe. Not that we would copy them, but we could operate in a similar fashion. For a given game or sport, there might be an individual who has a similar style to us that can be an example for us, a prototype. As we contemplate our prototype, who doesn’t have to evidence perfection, if it is another individual we can also try to see that although we admired this person in this setting, they probably have imperfections of their own that they needed to deal with themselves. We might put a halo effect on people because of perceptions that they are perfect by something as simple as outer appearance. Our understanding of perfection strongly weighs into the visual plane. How little we ever see however. But the prototype situation, person, or ideal that we are trying to emulate might be a more realistic approach in that we can accept less than a perfect scenario while coming close to the prototype. The GM for the basketball team has an easier time finding the proto typical point guard, the Jason Kidd. I might be better off starting my search by looking for a proto typical women or something close to that model, rather than an outright perfect person while the proto typical or something close to it might seem less daunting.

I might find someone is interested in me and I thought they were perfect. You might go down two steps in my eyes because you like me. I used to think so highly of you. Like George Burns said “ I would never want to be join a club that wanted me as a member."

Perfection of will is another concept. In fact I will more than likely have mixed motives. If we are going to try and play the perfect game, then the question is, why do I want to play the game perfectly? Within the idea of perfection what should we include then if we are going to be honest about the perfection of the will. Is this idea the perfect thing to want? If I’m imperfect it might be the perfect thing to want something less than perfect because it might be a better fit in relation to my own imperfections. And then we can go back to the prototype. Other people may have these imperfect situations or imperfect things and may in fact have wanted them, so why do we feel so selfish or self-serving to seek these things, without having to be perfect about it. Are the lyrics of perfection there? Some point where we can tune in. What are the perfect missions, techniques, wishes, desires, interests?

Without copying, paint a picture somewhat like a Van Gogh and you’re in the good neighborhood for impressionist paintings.

Can I have two wishes, one for perfection, and one for imperfection? If I get both, can I deal with the duality present?

Looking back to the example of the speaker, yes, I did want to hear this speaker. A perfect wish you say. Well then, first and foremost, get there, hear the speaker, and you see if you get what you wanted. Your wish is fulfilled, the perfect wish with the perfect match for the wish. Two wishes are fulfilled, the speaker has her audience and you are glad to hear her. If the speaker gives a perfect speech and you don’t have an ear to her, what good is that?

Another reason to stop looking always for the highest heights of perfection is that there are other views you might like. And if you do like these views, or another view, not seen from the height of perfection, what more are you going to ask for. Like what you like, in whatever way it comes to you, whether perfectly or imperfectly.

Look at the point of disappointment. I am disappointed. I’ll never see this imperfect person again. I miss less them and their less than perfect selves. You already like what you like. The point where you miss out is just not getting there. You may have missed a boat you really wished you hopped in retrospect with some good views of the coast, which was less than perfect, which you still wanted to see. There may have been some points of perfection on a less than perfect trip. The perfectionist standard improperly applied can keep to from getting there in the first place. Then again I never had a perfect day, why look for it now. The point of acceptance is, I’m not getting the perfection I wanted.

The zone is what we are looking for. The hitter in baseball can get into a zone in basketball the shooter gets into a zone where she is hitting most of her shots. Anything we can get into a zone on, like a runner who does find a zone , is about as close to the concept of perfect that we are going to get at this moment. Can we find elation within some imperfections? A zoned in conversation is near perfect. A date where the people find themselves in some sort of a zone is near perfect. All this relates to presence and we can see that there must be some relationship between presence and perfection. There is the near perfect sunrise present, but if I don’t look up and see it, I am not present to it. But that doesn’t mean that sunrise wasn’t there. But that zone is never going to arrive if you first raise the bar of perfection so high, that you never did get there in the first place, although it might be among many reasons that you don’t get there, never finding that landing strip. You took off on a trip to perfection but you never landed there. The search for perfection might be one of the reasons that the striving becomes too much. You are searching against the fierce winds of perfection. Maybe sometimes search against the idea of less than perfect. The idea of perfection might for some become not an additional motivator but just another obstacle in the obstacle course of getting there first, another contributing reason not to. So many things that were possible have been cancelled because the participants didn’t see wanted perfection. The search for perfection is more of a reason to let go rather than hold on. Your less than perfect motivations are still motivations. Get there and then see, what you see, hear what you hear, and let the situation itself speak to you. Worry about perfection later if she gives you an invitation to visit. Maybe there was some perfection in iniquity but your note going to get there. Maybe there will be times of perfection in the next millennium but your not going to get an invite.

In the hierarchy, the list of priorities, first get there, drop perfection down the list until you arrive. Anyway how low are you on the totem pole anyway? Just because you’re not perfect, doesn’t put you on the lowest rung of the ladder.

If you want to get to the track and enjoy a day at the races, hold your bets, first get there with some money in your pocket. The horses will do what they will do, it will be a gamble, for you might win, you might lose, you might run, you might love, just get there. Don’t be disappointed that the horse named perfection isn’t running.

Wins, the losses, the gambles, all the secondary to getting there, seeing that leaf before it finally falls, getting to Rome before it has vanished. At the end of the movie Gladiator, the fading leaves of the fall had fallen into the Coliseum, symbolizing that the end was near for some of the central characters. The movie seemed to say that from the raised dais of the splendors and glories of Rome as it was then and as the visible pantheon of perfection from that dais, only the eternal could follow.

It’s okay to have some bars, some perfectionist’s standards. But a bar becomes bars that become barriers that keep us out.

But we can also do away with the bar totally. Why leap over a bar when you can when you get rid of the bar outright? Why bring any standards whatsoever into this. Do I need to have some magic elixir, some sort of standard of success for this endeavor? Why bring this to the table when it may not apply.

If I raise the banner of perfection, I should look at it as more of something I can view or look towards, or bring into my sights, as an encouragement. First, the banner of perfect might be different for me and different for you. The idealized prototype is often different for each individual. Everybody has a bit of style that can be unique. The banner can be very much related to the individual and your banner might be different than mine, just like your prototype might be different than my prototype. A friend of mine looked up at the banners hanging in Madison Square Garden and just saw Bill Bradley’s in that moment. It did apply to him in a way he played that style of basketball and was also interested in politics as well. But I can see this banner as such, maybe above me, maybe somewhat in the distance, something to strive for that has some relationship to me and my own interests but not necessarily attainable at this time. The banner comes into play only in that it relates to me in some way and has some level of obtainability.

The idea of perfection itself can cause a lack of movement. If I can’t do this perfectly I might as well bag it. If I can’t skirt the coast perfectly I say why travel the coast? Because I can only move within the lines of perfection, I limit my movements. We might bail earlier if we don’t see perfection, but there still could have been views in the situation we would have liked. The girl feels this guy doesn’t meet her standards and bails right away. Better safe then sorry. The lack of leeway towards allowing some imperfection to come into view causes a lack of movement. The case is summarized before it is ever brought to court for discussion and argument. Even if I were looking for perfection only, I would still want the imperfection to come into view so I could sidestep it if I wanted to. Maybe the corollary goal to perfection needs to be movement, I want some movement on this issue. If the perfectionist standards gets me going then fine, but if it leaves me frozen in my tracks, far from an accord or pact, even in my attempts, then it is running counter to my previously stated interest, the perfection I seek works against me. The better model to work with in terms of my thinking is close to perfect. You can think of some things you have done close to perfectly, but it is more difficult to think of things you have done perfectly. But you can visualize times and places where you have been close to perfect maybe you can revisit that.

Think of the running back in football as he seeks the perfect run, he moves to the left or the right through this hole in the line, openings which depend on the continuing adjustments of defenders, quickly changing within the movements of the game. There are going to be unknown movements on the field within the confines of the game. It’s not like he is going to get a chance in most cases to run to the goal line, which represents perfection for me. There isn’t even a chance for the perfect run.

This is the way of prevailing winds, why pine for perfection when the very elements could be against us at times.

Why do I have to necessarily cast my lot with perfection, it can be a consideration, but a requirement is something I have to pursue. Can I hedge my bets with a little consideration towards that which is less than perfect? Can a long shot be worth a bet? I can think about being perfect, but do I have to be. I can think about being the best, but do I have to be.

Say I’m on a wagon train out West in the 1800’s, do I need to preserve perfection, plant the perfect garden, if I’m only going to continue on and uproot in a short time, to the next dig. Even if we can obtain perfection, can we preserve it anyway, or is the cost of perfection high too, the seemingly high maintenance of perfection. Keeping up with the Jones may be not what I want to do every day. Especially over time, perfection might quickly unravel and dissipate, whether we water the gardens or not.

There may be golden opportunities in less than ideal or perfect scene. I could meet my dream girl in front of a garbage dump. If I wait for the perfect opportunity I might miss out on the perfect I wanted which was found contained in the less the perfect opportunity. An imperfect investment could have netted me the perfect yield. People do this all the time, they wait for the perfect conditions to set sail, and they miss out. I could stumble upon perfection on some imperfect road. If the perfection I seek doesn’t float my boat down the coast, then maybe I should look for imperfection to get me going. At least I’ll catch some of the coastline, even if I do this imperfectly.

If we do get into the idea of perfection, then the idea of maintenance comes into play. How do I want to maintain perfection across the landscape that is crossing into planes of imperfection and outright chaos? The recent movie the Patriot contains a scene where the two armies meet on someone’s perfectly manicured lawn. It highlighted some of the absurdities of combat, a perfect landscape not against imperfection but against outright anarchy. The patriots fought in what was considered at first an imperfect fashion of ambushing from the woods.

With the new President, maybe he is growing with the job. If I’m aiming for perfection right away should there be room for growth, movements, and some leeway on the ride. I could make a mistake I hope it will not be glacial in proportion, all encompassing, covering over all the good. I expect to make some mistakes, but I hope I don’t hit an iceberg outright.

We hold so tightly to the idea of perfection, that the idea itself loses some utility, and ultimately we lack movement and ability to go left or right, this way or that way, and we lose some of the spontaneous answers that can be applied. The imperfections I can use are passed by the perfections I couldn’t use. If my idea doesn’t hit on perfect, it still might work for me. I might find I’m hitting the perfect wall.

A recent movie that was interesting was the Perfect Storm.

It highlighted the idea of movements in relation to perfectionist standards.

The fisherman had a draught in their catches and there were complaints that no money was coming in. They went out and had a great catch in the middle of the Atlantic, in a setting, which was incredibly calm and beautiful. However the ice machine, which would preserve the catch, broke and they needed to get back within a couple of days or the catch would go bad. There was news of a storm brewing of monumental proportions, and they debated the decision of letting the catch go bad and staying safely out to see and away from the hurricane or trying to maneuver back through the storm. Some of the members said they could let the fish go bad and just try again another time. But the decision was made to go for it, and they did get perfection, the Perfect Storm. The movements under the goal of getting this great catch to market were made when probably the perfect thing to do was just enjoy the beautiful weather they were in, accept the loss of the catch, and try again another time. There prior idea of perfection couldn’t be reached and their movements under that proved to be a mistake as the film went on and even really a mistake right then and there. A final moment was a Titanic wave approaching a central character as he floated away. Just seeing the motion and size of the wave was enough to know that we were at an ending. Nothing less than an ocean liner could have been capable of handling such conditions. They didn’t size in proportion and there was a lack of attention to proportion in their attempts. The waves were ridiculously high. So when do we pull our poles out of the water and stop for the day, and let perfection go away.

The situation they were in had changing coordinates. The stations had changed. The sea changed it’s formation and design and perfection showed a different face. The perfect thing to do would have been to stay in the calm area of the Atlantic near Europe and let the fish go bad or bring the fish to a European market, which were still accessible through safe waters. They should have followed the new design of perfection or at least kept out front the idea of self-preservation in the ordering of priorities over changing coordinates.

If I muse under the banner of perfection, raising it above me, I should look at it more as something I can view as I strive and move forward, keeping it in my sights, as an encouragement as I try to move further down the coast. But if I see this banner as flying so high above me, rising into the unreachable sky, at first maybe only somewhat in the distance, but soon unreachable in sight, then maybe I should lower the banner so I can at least see it, or just go without it and lose hope for perfection on the visible planes. But we might be capable of navigating our way down the coast without using the demands of perfection to get going. Even with a heightened sense of excitement, of what I can really do and enjoy, I can only fly so high. I will eventually face the unreachable. But what then is my banner, my banner for the day, for this goal, how high should this banner fly for this or that, should it be so distant that it blends into the distant sky where it loses it differentiation. Or should I keep this banner close enough so that I can see it clearly in the sky, in greater proportion to the endless background of the sky, as a point of perfection, a star that I can see, not like a kite that fly’s so high and distant that I can barely see it. Perfection is indeed a moving target, but first keep it as target that I can see, a targets that has some proportion to me, if I choose to raise that banner. I meet the girl with the perfect look, but she is 100 feet tall, then things are out of proportion for me. By the way, I am looking at this banner at the beach, so there is an element of perfection already present, because after all, your on the beach.

Whatever you are doing, you don’t want to be aloof about it. One of the advantages of perfectionist route is it might help us see how far we can go. Perfection also relates to the maximum and trying to get the maximum performance. But it is an imperfect trail to the maximum. Can I run the five-minute mile or try to at least come close to it? I want to take this perfect route but also what will get me there? I want to both take the perfect road and get to the perfect place. I could take my car cross-country on winding roads and still get to L.A., the City of the Angels. Take a walk by the bay of perfection and see what it looks like. Let’s try to get to the City of the Angels regardless.

Then give yourself a break for 60 seconds or even 2 minutes. It’s a start, you can look up, come up for air, breath a little.

As we hold up our perfectionist model, contemplate it’s advantages, and that will put me on the plane of a more realistic analysis as to the why of the perfectionist route, because perfection should have it’s advantages, or why bother.

It’s good to barrel towards the maximum to an extent, but it is also important to see what are the additional inputs needed as we strive for the maximum performance. I might be a great rebounder with the input of further weight training. I might be able to read this book perfectly with the input of a new pair of glasses. Then what are the outputs, if I am moving towards perfection there should be some signs, I am running faster, jumping higher, going further. Or is perfection always found in the heightened state of affairs. Indeed, it is possible that someone ran the fastest mile ever and didn’t time it or didn’t have any observers cheering them on.

I mean you can start the game running, break out the gate at full speed, but how do we deal with some of the obstructions as we point to the maximum, or even just ponder additional inputs along the way to the maximum. There might be needed input points within the striving. As I strive for the maximum run, at some point I realize a better running shoe is essential. I had left that out, and I realize everybody else has that state of the art running shoe. Getting back to the fuller picture again, where and when is additional input needed, such as the need for a better running shoe, as I strive for a perfect picture, I may need to do some more painting, add some colors or positioning on the brush.

Maybe something we can do is look for positive links. For example, I did good on a test in school or I pitched a good game for my baseball team, maybe I could correlate that with this upcoming date, maybe there is some overlap that I could link with, however weak the link is, there might be one. I might not know what’s perfect until I get there so picture another good or perfect moment or scene and bring it to this new seemingly unrelated scenario. I was close to perfect on the baseball mound so maybe I can be close to perfect on this date or on the ski slopes. These positive links might have recurring aspects to them that crossover into this new realm without requiring perfectionist impulses. You’re already halfway there then.

Then conditions might not be suitable to your idea of perfection. In Gone with The Wind, Scarlett’s idea of perfection is Ashley that might have there. She became so centered on this one idea that she crowded out other good ideas and possibilities for her own benefit. Ashley became the whole picture she wanted to get to when there were other actors in her landscape. Her pursuit of her idea of perfection becomes self centered and selfish. There were others interested in her affections and company, but she saw her only way as being the perfect way.

We might face a dichotomy as we look for the perfect way. The road we face seems to be split in every other direction. I have a dual attraction to perfection. I like perfections road but there are some things on that imperfect road that intrigue me. Either road might not be a walk in the park anyway there might be a fork in this perfect road. There might be seen, unseen, and unforeseen fault lines in our thinking and approaches.

The joke might be on us. Picture yourself as an outfielder in the stadium. You do have a great arm, but in the dense fog that just rolled in right on time in the stadium, can you still make the perfect throw to the plate when you can barely see it. I can’t seem to get what I want, then I begin to play games with myself, this isn’t really what I want, it’s a perfectionist pursuit in an imperfect world. At last, then, I bring the game playing to myself it’s myself I play tricks on.

It you can’t reach perfection, what do you fall back to. Can I still get a little piece of the pie? If I can’t hurdle the mountain, is there someplace else I can go?

If you have to throw perfection out the window, you don’t have to let all things go out to sea. There are still some things you might salvage from an imperfect situation. You don’t have to throw everything overboard.

However if you enjoy a song on the radio, that is perfections moment. It can’t better than that. I was swimming next to some surfers, there was a surfer near me that was on a way I thought could have been 20 feet high on Long Island beaches in the evening sun. As he was surfing this wave, He yelled it doesn’t get better than this. It was relatively rare to get waves that were safely ride able yet that high on Long Island. He found his idea of perfection in that moment.

Where does perfection start and stop and how is it even recognized? Where does it leave me off? What turns do I make on perfections roads. Or does it have to be found in a straight line. Why strive for perfection if you can’t even picture things even beginning to go well for you, or see yourself getting started on something that isn’t going to be on the border of disastrous. Maybe we revolt first against the idea of even visualizing ideals that seem to require perfection, believing that we know we don’t actually possess what it takes to get there. We don’t want to further envision or picture those secret and clandestine ideals, and thereby set ourselves up again for another one of those disappointments, by letting our imagination run a risky wider course rather than safely circling around the lofty ideals. But why is it harder to envision something more in tune with the better, rather than the less than or even terrible outcome.

The split in our thinking begins, the inflection point rises, as we ponder the more perfect scenario, which seems in fact to cause a further rupture, a fracture in our thinking, a further breach in our ideals, when there might have been some hope of the mending of those fences by bringing the images closer to the forefront, rather than by having the imagery more distant from where I stand. If we are going to entertain the idea of perfection, look for perfection that is closer rather than more distant times and places. I want the perfect day in 2021, but how about this month. If I can’t even imagine a home run, just think about a hit. So our inability to envision, imagine represents the safer course, hopefully less damaging to the beliefs I already have that I’m stuck with something less than perfect while I have to be nothing less then perfect to explore something different or new. Could I ever be the less than perfect traveler? I can’t even imagine something less than perfect. Did India Jones travel through perfection.

If I have to make the more perfect leap to over that issue, to the last widening ravine, why even envision it, it almost like a seventh heaven.

I am looking at something that I find desirable but increasingly seems unobtainable.

I’ve identified perfection. It’s right there. But I can’t get to it. What good does it do me? Perfection doesn’t stand with me, so I’m left alone to deal with imperfection.

We punish ourselves for imperfection, driving ourselves further from perfection. For example, I have tickets for a series of plays I miss my ride for the first play, a play that I really wanted to see, so I cancel the whole series. I miss a great trip with my friends, so I’ll punish myself and not go on any subsequent trips. I got a C in this course, so I will not apply to graduate school.

Why not start by just picturing myself doing a bit better, feeling somewhat more comfortable or engaged, rather than aiming your arrow for a more of a final vision, that seems to fly at a higher than the day. Flying at an altitude higher than I can obtain now, rendering me more subject to hopes and whims of absolute perfectionist sightings I can barely even see right now. More like musings that never get heard the voices I can’t hear, again like that banner so distant in the sky I can barely see it.

If you are already frazzled by seemingly trying and disgruntled and unfulfilled circumstances, and your finding yourself in a widening disconnect, and while looking for the perfect escape to the Kingdom, as you look for incremental relief both in reality and in your imaginings it might be easier to start with the small, before what can seem to become illusions further alienate you from your capabilities of the moment. Look to ease out, you might want to escape to another imperfect situation, but it still could be much better situation. If you are in real trouble, it might be best to look for the better escapes, rather than outright perfection. If I am trying to get out of a storm, do I look for the perfect route out of it or just any route that gets me out?

Why also then have musings of perfection when the resources aren’t there. Or define perfection more realistically and on a valid plane to the situations or circumstances I am in. Is real perfection just on a visual plane? Do you see a perfect world out there with these eyes? I can’t have the perfect vacation trip to the planets if the Star Trek series is cancelled. If it valid for me to think of perfection as surfing the monstrous waves when I am just starting out with my surf board and I know in my heart I could never face the 40 foot waves with just me and my surfboard, I really don’t have the potential.

Perfection itself needs to be routed through

the intersecting lines of reality. Why try to route perfection through this endeavor when I am dealing with at least some element of chaos. In football, I can try to run the perfect route as a receiver but if I encounter numerous tacklers from all sides I might not be able to do this. I hit perfection on my route’s formation but little else. I thought everything was included with the package of perfection. Check your transmission lines. As your routing through the wires perfection, where are the splits. If I try to route through those lines of perfection into the center, where and when can I centrifuge the off line transmissions, splits in the wiring, or a more complex web of wires that I am routing through while trying to connect the remaining dots while running through my first route perfectly. Should I have redundancy in my routings, where if a wire breaks, I have a second route, as I route through perfectly. Have you ever routed perfection through a day of chaos? If you did, was it worth the effort. The opportunity cost of striving for perfection is that it leaves us little energy for the imperfect. After my pursuit of perfection, I have nothing left over go give to the imperfect. And then could the imperfect and perfection have a rendezvous? Can they achieve some contentment in their intertwining? Or would everything just mix down into the imperfection. How many opportunities have you and I said goodbye too because we knew we or they were imperfect?

Then how should I link my perfectionist musings with the prevailing conditions? If the day is so sunny, do I have to be in the perfect location to catch the sunshine? The abundant sunshine gives me many chances to catch its rays and I don’t have to be in any one location or in a perfect place. Anywhere I go I can catch the rising sun. And if the ill winds of fate are against me, can I hold myself to the perfection I wanted when I am just holding on for dear life.

Then what is perfect, if I pitch a game where I hold the team to 2 runs, if this a perfect game for me, maybe, given my abilities.

Then how about the perfectionists lock out. By setting up prerequisites, barriers of entry of perfectionist makings, I may be excusing myself from the game. Can I jump into this now or not? Even if I meet the prerequisites, will I then make the jump or just set up more prerequisites? Unless I can hurdle over my faults, failings, and take that leap into perfection, I perceive myself as not being able to let this in unless I can welcome it perfectly.

Then maybe we don’t even want perfection. We first enjoyed the chase for perfection and now we don’t even enjoy the chase. I think I need everything but I don’t know what that includes. I just want the ride to perfection but I’ll get off the bus earlier then the perfections stop. In some ways, we had chance at and a channel to perfection yesterday, while we were chasing tomorrow, waiting for that perfect day, when all the perfect soldiers would line up, letting go off those perfect chances we had right there with Ringo, John, Paul, and George in those yesterdays we had together and instead we ended up on that same corner with Dick Van Dyke in his movie about alcoholism, drinking a bottle out of a paper bag and listening to the tune of yesterday, when my troubles where so far away, and reaching an end of a cycle right back to the gutter.

A good movie that relates is Fried Green Tomatoes, the central character is a women goes back to the place of her youth where all the scenes of the action part of the movie takes place in the retrospective view of the places in her youth, but there is nothing left there now in the present time but thick vines and what seems to be an abandoned set of stores around an old railroad station. Although she has her epiphany now against all these scenes of her youth, it’s too late now to do anything meaningful about it. Moral being it’s nice to finally get the epiphany, but it might be long after the fact, in a those distant tomorrows, when things where going to somehow be perfect, where now it is too late to get the perfection because those days have long gone by and so has everyone else. I lost that slate. Why did I assume I could see yesterday from the top? You can be at the top of the world, but the view from the top is not going to give you a second look at yesterday no matter what. Climb that perfect mountain but realize you are leaving yesterday behind.

And then if I climb a 10000 foot mountain, getting to the top, I might feel like I’m a mile high. But I’m still the same 6 feet tall I was before I got to the top of this mountain. I’m still working with the same base as far as my personal height is, and in many other ways. No matter what we are trying to do or ultimately achieve, in many ways what we are working with for the most part stays the same. We don’t get a different base. We need to not lose track of what we are going to be working with as a reality check. Whatever obtainable point of perfection I reach I am still at the point of being 6 feet tall, or 5 or 7 feet tall. I am still working with this height.

Rather than always trying to get the perfection look at what’s best. An imperfect bird in the hand might be better than two perfect birds in the bush that I’ll never have. You think you want to be chairman in 30 years, or strive for that, reaching that high mountain. But you might get there and realize so much has disappeared behind you into the past, and that fog followed you part of the way up to the mountaintop and you don’t even have the view you wanted from the top. Full consideration should have been given to all those days and each of it’s concerns with some fortification of the present, not just those distant tomorrows, when things were going to be perfect. Big deal, you finally get that perfect day, but by ruminating about it, pining for, that continuing cost of which became prohibitive towards the message of the moment and tapping the wells of the running waters then and now. You might be so forested and cloistered by hoped for projections of future perfections that you lost your way in that, dimming your sight for today and then you also didn’t see underneath the wanted perfection into layers of imperfection that also had bona fide opportunities. A perfect idea can be found in an imperfect article. And those layers of imperfection might have hidden another layer of perfection. The girl looking for the perfect date and the guy looking for the perfect dates have to meet in perfection otherwise they will ship and skip past each other. I could be color blind to perfection or I can’t hear and I can’t see at that frequency of light and sound. It could be right in front of me and I can’t even see it. And it all means nothing now if it wasn’t going to mean anything to you then, but it might have meant the world to you if you could have gotten past perfection to the imperfection you really wanted.

By the time you got the hole in one on the golf course, your audience disappeared they didn’t stay for the finale. A girl at the height of her beauty say 30 years old has an audience. She will still have an audience at 70, but she may lose some of the audience by then for her beauty anyway, although she might of course have other great achievements at a later age. In the zero sum game, perfection must add up then. And that includes perfection right now if it’s ever going to add up.

Michael Jordan is making a comeback right now at 38 in the NBA. He still has an audience. But if he waited another ten years, would he still be selling out arenas and getting a great TV viewer ship. Consider your position then and what I’m dealing with and where is my audience located.

So the young women says, I’ll get my masters, my PhD, my law degree, then I’ll get married at 30, in 2002. But in fact the prefect time for her to get married happened to be in 1996. So she had the perfect age, but the perfect time for the perfect guy was 1996. Perfection doesn’t always come together for their individual seekers, because there are several currents of perfection including the perfect time for someone else, and I might be perfectly ready to hop that ship but it has long traveled past my coastal Port of Spain. There are crisscrossing routes to consider when we bring perfection to the front position. I might be nearing perfection on one front but missing it on another front. It could work the other way the perfect time for this guy to get married was when he was 25. However, at 35 he is meeting a girl who is 25, who was then 15 at his perfect age of 25 and too young at that time. But he is so mad that he missed his perfect time, when someone else who is perfect comes along years later and he can’t see it now because he had hoped to meet with perfection 10 years ago and she didn’t show up then so he can’t make it happen now, not realizing that perfection has different intersections and doesn’t always show up at my perfect time.

And then we might isolate ourselves in search of that trail which we believe follows perfection. But since I’m isolating for perfection, I am sure I am holding to the right theory. I might be following the wrong trails to perfection.

I hold that bat in my hands but nothing else. I need to grab the handle of perfection. What good is perfection if I can’t get my hands on it, if there isn’t going to be any hands on to this? Do I really need to need to turn off the lights on everything else, limiting other diverse possibilities and intersections in the wiring, giving up on further balancing in the question of what I should be incorporating as I go along, as I size out imperfection.

I am looking for perfection but nothing else and no one else.

At some point later we could switch this into current routings of perfection, but not yet. I might have the capacity for perfection later for now I need to focus. But realize you could focus yourself out of every other game those games might be over by the time you get there. You are finally ready after game time. You don’t have to bring perfection with you on every trip. You don’t have to pack those bags of perfection to go. Did you ever enjoy an imperfect ride?

Perfection might not be found in the isolated circumstances and conditions, it might be found within the layers of imperfection. The diamond might be located under the surface.

And whom do you want to bring with you on your trip to perfection. If I want the perfect hike of 20 miles, and I have someone that will join me if I lessen the distance to 15, then I compromise perfection for company of someone who will only hike the 15 miles is prioritized over the perfect 20-mile hike.

So in conclusion, if we want to try for perfection, at least stay on the beach, keep the banner in view from the beachfront, don’t fly the kite so high that it’s blending into the distant sky, keep the banner of perfection closer and more visible. If the banner disappears from my sight, then what good is it. I lost my checks on the visual plane. And be careful not to find out that the joke is on you, the last laugh was that you were at the point of perfection and you didn’t realize it, and spent all your time chasing something you already had.

If I have the prevailing winds, I might raise my sails perfectly to meet them. If winds are less then perfect, I can adjust my sails to the winds of imperfection. All the while keeping my sails in view, like I keep the banner in view. I can follow my way down the coast.

I don’t always have to have my sails up but if I don’t have my sails up, I may miss a particular breeze from the coasts. Opportunities can be lost.

Can I finally make that perfect leap past perfection and into imperfection where I can actually do something?

I was starting out on a run of towards the baseball stadium which at that point was almost 10 miles away. I began too pull out my watch after a half mile and I stopped myself and said to myself, wait until I actually do something, run a few miles before I see what kind of time frame I’m dealing with. It was as if by looking at my watch I was going to all the sudden be 7 miles into the run or run faster. The half-mile I had run was just about nothing compared to my plan for 10 miles. Looking at my watch was just a make believe dance with the situation that accomplished nothing.

Do something first before bringing in perfectionist measures. Hit the home run first then bring in the tape measures. Don’t start bringing in the measures of perfection until you actually do something. Babe Ruth pointed to the stands but he did hit the home run, then we had a story.

Take in the outsider’s view of yourself, a more distant view that might give you more objectivity and perspective. Your opportunity could be anywhere and everywhere, don’t just assume it’s here only and artificially establish those boundaries.

Think of what we have and just how much of it are we using. I might have these great gifts but I might be using only a small percentage of these gifts or I am using them only a small percentage of the time, maybe because I am looking onward and only for the whole package of perfection. You might be grabbing past the grab bag.

Perfection then is like that sail that I raise towards perfection or lower towards depending on what keep me sailing down the coast. I only raise my sails to perfection if it will keep me going, if not I lower them to imperfection. I use perfection only if it serves me and when it serves me. I am master of my ship.

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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)

» left by shahrzad
50 days ago.

great.

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