Throws you back into trying to fix the world

Being a perfectionist is more than merely striving for technical flawlessness. 

It can also manifest in the form of aggressive idealism and naive enthusiasm. 

Ellis cites this brand of perfection as one of our core irrational beliefs. He writes:

We convince ourselves that precise and correct solutions exist for every world problem, and we must find them immediately. But that attitude only ties us up further into knots of indecision. Perfection becomes a fairytale, an unreasonable demand we place on the world. Compulsively obligating ourselves to it, that typically leads to stagnation and frustration. 

Now, that doesn’t make us bad people for wanting to save the world. The ache to come together to conceive of a solution that unfucks all this mess, that’s a universal human craving. 

But when things aren’t working the way we expected to, our natural inclination is to throw more at the problem. And that doesn’t always work. 

Maybe it’s an experience to be savored, not a problem to be solved. 

Maybe the pressure to find a solution is going to be unbearable and isn’t worth the cost. 

Maybe letting go of perfection doesn’t reduce our commitment to doing the best we can. 

Welshons writes in his book of prayers that the most healing solution to any problem is more love. Which is hard for many of us to stomach, since love is perhaps the most imperfect thing in the universe. But wishing to speed up the healing process is not the best use of our time. 

Remember, nothing is perfect, final or fixed in this material world. 

And striving for that is both unattainable and unnecessary. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What if there is nothing wrong with the pain that you were experiencing?