Someone recently sent me a meme. It said: “Fear can show up as a perfectionist”. We were having a conversation about what I want. I said I had about 80% of what I wanted; thinking about my husband and kids, my career, my movement, my creativity, my time on, and my time off. It’s all rather beautiful. That never escapes me. Nonetheless, I reach for more. I know there’s still 20% out there that is dazzling and dizzying and all mine to grab.
Was the meme meant to imply that that reach was an attempt at perfection? And, thus, by extension, flawed? My conditioned response was to text back a “Hell, yes!” But the exchange sat in my mind for days. Neither the meme nor conversation felt freeing. I didn’t leave empowered; I left decidedly stifled.
The next day I ruminated on all the messaging out ‘there’ these days. By ‘there’ I mean this increasingly dumbass place where I seem to repeatedly scroll in hopes of inspiration and glee or, at the very least, solace, but in perpetuity leave empty handed, empty minded. It seems to tell us all to slow down, be kind to yourself, stop striving, be minimalist, be grateful, embody contentment, stop, slow, sit. Lord knows, I’ve uttered every single one of these decrees on these very pages and I often find my self robotically trying to soothe others around me with these pejorative head pats: there, there, dear one, just sit still, stop with that silly reach.
Jesus, what utter vomit.
What in the actual hell are we opening up and swallowing these days?
A few days later, while slogging hills in the woods, I listened to this:
I’ve listened to it twice since.
Drs Brown and Lewis offered these insightful definitions:
Perfection: an inhuman aim, motivated by a concern with how others view us
Mastery: commitment to constant pursuit, an endurance event, ever onward forward
Success: an event based trajectory based on a peak point
Dysfunctional persistence: repeating success after success whilst deadening the creative process
Grit: the ability to withstand distractions during a pursuit, over decades
They waxed poetic about how the trick of it all was to pursue your mastery with every ounce of grit that you had while protecting yourself from the talons of those that circle hawk-eyed around you. Those that want you to pursue success, perhaps so they can imbibe. Those that want you to focus on what they need from you and, never mind dear one, about all that other nonsense you are considering. Let that go, be kind to yourself, focus here. No, no, not there silly girl, here, here, on this thing over here.
A ha!
There’s why the meme convo felt like a punch in the stomach: my reach at mastery was being perceived as a fight for perfection.
Ya, no.
I couldn’t literally give two fucks about how others view me. I know that that’s the narrative that we’ve been trying to push down women’s throats for a while: we push and fight and strive and starve and run and bejewel because we want you to love us. Oh honestly, give me a break. No, we reach and strengthen and flex and seek and adorn because we don’t settle with 80%. We don’t care about success, neither ours and certainly not yours. We want that little piece of magic that you assume is out of reach. We have grit.
So what you perceive as burnout, as ‘overdoing it’, as sadness, is not the result of our tireless jaunt towards your castles of perfection. It’s not fatigue because we have been trying to do ‘it all’ and we should just understand that that is not possible, sit down, have a mug of tea and put on some fleece. No, it’s not that, it’s a twinge of resentment and a significant amount of displeasure that we let your talons dig in and pluck us from our march to mastery.
Please stop doing that.
You might consider, instead, joining us.
Because we are here to wayfind to our highest self and find power there. We may occasionally break stride and do your chores, you’ll know when we do, because the yearning and pacing will increase. But we will now get ourselves more swiftly back on track. There is now a new deal: you clean your room and we’ll take care of ours. Sometimes we’ll do it in stilettoes, sometimes on all fours, fuck it, maybe we will do it in fleece. Whatever. Point is, we’re going to focus on our work now. And, ya, we aren’t settling for good enough. We’ll stop when we reach glory and cosmos and things you’ve never even dared to think of. We’ll stop when we say so. And here’s the thing, we will never say so.