(A personal failing of mine: an inability to keep my shoes clean)
I never really thought of myself as a perfectionist. I was in an art program for three years of my high school career and man were there some perfectionists there. One of those perfectionists became someone I now consider one of my oldest and closest friends, and he destroyed a BEAUTIFULLY made ceramic frog (I'm talking super realistic, and at fourteen years old no less) because when he painted it he thought it didn't look right. I'm not going to lie, I kind of hated him for it. I enjoyed doing things I was good at, I didn't have to be the best (and I definitely wasn't) but things like drawing, painting and later on writing came very naturally to me so that's what I did. Looking back I see so many things that I missed out because I was afraid of failure, I was a different kind of perfectionist, instead of obsessing until the final product was perfect, I just didn't even bother unless I knew I would do well. I have three specific examples in my life that I want to use to illustrate this.
My first example was when I was probably thirteen, at my school we had had a performance by some martial artists doing Capoeira and I remember thinking wow I want to be able to do that! So my mother signed me up for a course at our local community center and I took the bus over after school walked up to the designated room and stopped. I watched the kids in there already practicing and I felt this awful pit in my stomach, I spent several minutes trying to talk myself into going but I ended up just going home and telling my mother I just didn't feel well. I took me two more times of standing in front of those door unable to go in before I went to my mother in tears and said I didn't want to do Capoeira any more. The idea of going in a complete beginner in front of more experienced students terrified me.
My second example was university. I attended university for three years and I can definitely say I was a less than stellar student for several reasons. One being that I lacked discipline, two because I had too much freedom and three because I was no longer the smartest kid in the room. I did well my last two years of high school, I got great grades, I had a job, I even participated in extra-curriculars (which I never did before and never did again) and while I may not have been the top kid in class, I was definitely high ranking and because of that I developed a sense of superiority over my fellow classmates. Not in an antagonistic way, but I was someone that people didn't naturally assume was smart and I was proud of that. Now when I got to university, one of the top schools in Canada at the time I was suddenly on a campus full of kids who were the smartest of the room, and I quickly realized I was one of the less-smart, smart people and so instead of working harder (and risk not improving) I embraced the slacker lifestyle and turned myself into an under achiever, because that way when I did well it was a great surprise and when I did badly, well that's what I expected anyways.
My final example is what I am struggling with right now. I mentioned before that I have a plan for my future now, and that plan involves my return to school and learning subjects that I have either previously failed at or never even done in the first place. My whole life I have been bad at math; it's not that I can't do arithmetic, or algebra or any of it, my failings are because of lack of understanding but rather lack of patience. My biggest problem with math is that I just want to push through it and get it done, I make little mistakes like forgetting to copy out a negative symbol or writing out a number wrong or dividing the wrong two numbers and then I don't check my work. Right now I have to learn math, I have to take pre-calculus starting next month so I have been trying to review to prepare and it's awful. Getting questions wrong kills my soul, I take it personally, which is ridiculous because they are literally INANIMATE NUMBERS (or letters/symbols).
So what does all of this say about me? What am I trying to get at with all of this? Well maybe I'm realizing that the reason I am so unhappy with my life, why I feel so unfulfilled is because I never pushed myself. I put myself into this little box of skills and never bothered to branch out, once someone told me I was good at something that was it, that was all I needed and I never sought out to improve or do more. I am learning how to fail daily,I fail at yoga when I get impatient during my practice, I fail at motherhood when Bean falls off the couch when I'm not paying attention. I fail at being a girlfriend when I get snappy for no reason. I fail at being a functional human being when I struggle to get out of bed in the morning, and I fail at math. It can be unbelievably disheartening sometimes but I am also learning. All it takes is reminding myself to focus on my next breath in yoga, or to sit on the couch when I'm doing something distracting so that Bean is nearby, or telling H that I love him and apologize when I am out of line and to just take a deep breath and move onto my next equation and try a little bit harder. Failing sucks, but you can't get anywhere without it and while I do wish this was a lesson I had learned earlier in life (and then maybe paid more attention in math class) I'll take it now because hopefully now I can do something greater than I could have before.
