When Being A Perfectionist Makes Me Unhappy
Have you ever lived with perfectionist people? Probably yes. Their behavior is very curious and, at times, even amusing.
Perfectionists have a need to achieve perfection in everything they do. Be it a job, the organization of your things, everything has to be in place.
They cannot see the breakfast cup turned a little to the right. They need you to be in the center, perfectly arranged. A perfectionist mind can really go to these extremes.
Why am I a perfectionist?
There are many factors that can cause you to develop a perfectionist personality. In fact, this is often known as a syndrome, ” Perfectionist Syndrome ” or ” Anancastic Personality Disorder “.
Some experts believe that the cause of being a perfectionist may be a genetic predisposition.
On the other hand, other experts believe that several environmental factors exert a significant influence :
The society we live in, with its rules, its laws, its fashions, its way of seeing life, makes us want to be better than others.
Being a loser is not well regarded. Society considers that true happiness lies in success. But can we really live with this pressure? That’s when being a perfectionist starts to be a problem.
perfection doesn’t make me better
Being correct in everything, doing things well, not straying off the pre-set path… all of this doesn’t make you better than anyone else. Think, for example, that the more you strive to be a perfect person, the less you are.
People are not perfect and we must assume our imperfections as something of our own that makes us what we really are.
Only when we embrace imperfection will we be able to achieve perfect happiness. Because forcing ourselves to be something we are not will not make us happy, quite the opposite. We will be frustrated, we will be stressed.
But what is the daily life of a perfectionist like? To begin with, we will say that they live with low self-esteem. So much so that not even the praise of other people will make them satisfied with their work.
Guilt, pessimism and obsession are three words that define them perfectly. They will never get what they want, as absolute perfection is impossible to get.
This can often cause them to fall into depression unintentionally. Because disappointments and frustrations happen one after the other.
As with many other syndromes, perfectionism can also be overcome, whenever the person is aware that this attitude is not leading to happiness.
When a person is aware that he has a problem, that this need to seek perfection is the result of pressure to which he was subjected, he is already prepared to take the step towards acceptance.
It’s true that trying to improve is a very positive thing. We all must learn to be better, but we must never fall into terrible perfection.
We must embrace imperfection, giving everything we have to make things the best we can, but not obsessing about trying to achieve something that doesn’t really exist.
