My Journey with Perfectionism

 “Perfection is the enemy of good enough.”

Adapted from the well-known Voltaire quote, my dad often says this to me when he finds me in my room at midnight, stressing over a college essay or homework assignment. "Just turn it in! Get a B! Get an F, even! Just go to sleep!” You might be shocked that my Asian immigrant father is telling me to fail my assignments, but to be honest, I think he only tells me these things because he knows I’ll never listen.

I’ve been a perfectionist since I was little. Despite being in elementary school, where grades either didn’t matter or didn’t exist, every homework assignment had to be my 100 percent. I was always the last kid working on the assignment in art class, adding even more details as the other kids finished early and went to play. Even if I knew the answer to a question, I wouldn’t raise my hand in fear of being wrong–and when I was wrong, I wouldn’t be able to get my embarrassment out of my head.

In high school, it’s a lot harder for me to be an obsessive perfectionist; there’s so much to do and not enough time to do it, even without putting in 100 percent effort. While I’ve definitely toned down my perfectionism, I still spend an unreasonable amount of time worrying about the little things. No essay I write is even close to perfect, and I often end up scrapping the entire thing and restarting. I will absolutely re-load the dishwasher if my sister hasn’t organized it the right way. I overthink and overanalyze everything I say or do, and will obsess over interactions where I said or did something embarrassing.

I wouldn’t consider myself a perfectionist in all aspects of life, as I’m pretty messy and scatter-brained. My room is a total mess–right now, there’s a pile of clothes I meant to fold days ago lying on my unmade bed, and my desk is in a state of complete chaos. My attempt at being organized with my schoolwork has completely fallen through; all my carefully-labeled folders have papers from unrelated subjects, my planner has been empty for the past two weeks, and I forgot this blog post was due two days ago. However, whenever I do things, I have to do it right. I’ll spend the entire day deep-cleaning my room. I’ll painstakingly reorganize. I’ll spend forever trying to improve every assignment, whether it’s late or not. 

My perfectionism can be beneficial, as I’ve done pretty well in school and my extracurriculars, but it’s definitely problematic. While it takes away a lot of my time and energy, it also prevents me from doing the things I love. I used to write a lot of stories as a kid that were just brain-dumps of my imagination, but now, staring at a blank Google Doc, I am paralyzed; I need the perfect idea and I don’t have it, so I just can’t start. The same goes for painting, as I am incapable of starting a piece for a personal project. I can’t “waste” the canvas and my time on something that turns out ugly or was a bad idea. 

Despite my struggles with perfectionism, I have overcome it in some ways. While I still don’t listen to my dad as he amusedly tells me to turn in an incomplete assignment, I have gotten better at managing my time and effort for the things that matter while still leaving time to relax. I overthink things less, and spend less time worrying about what other people think of me. I answer questions in class even when I’m not sure of the answer, and don’t stress out about being wrong. Making mistakes is fundamental to learning, and it is through my mistakes more than my successes that I have grown as a person.