Why You Shouldn’t Seek Perfection

Although some of us are more prone to seek it than others, most of us have sought to be perfect at some point in life. This may have been seeking to perfect a skill, project, or presentation. Or perhaps the seeking was much broader, as in trying to live a perfect life or be the perfect person. At first, seeking perfection feels good. Seeking perfection causes us to spend a little extra time to improve our skills, project, or life. This improvement translates into progress, which makes us feel good, and results in more perfection-seeking. Eventually, however, we wonder whether we can make endless progress without ever attaining perfection. 

First, what is perfection? Perfection is judgment. It is subjective. To seek perfection is to seek judgement, either yours or someone else’s. You don’t need another reason to judge yourself. Seeking the judgment of another usually leads to disappointment.

Next, imagine perfection for a moment. If you have experienced perfection, imagine what it looked like, who you were with, and what made the thing or the moment perfect. And if you haven't experienced perfection, imagine what you think the perfect item or perfect moment would be. Bask in the perfection, either experienced or imagined. 

Now imagine experiencing what you recalled or envisioned every day. Perhaps if your perfection is a painting, you see it hanging above your desk in clear view every day. If your perfection is a memory or a place, perhaps you see a beach with a perfect sunset and your favorite person next to you. Would your perfect image still be perfect after an entire day? A week? A month? Of course not. 

Perfection is fleeting. That painting that was perfect on the wall of a gallery may not look great in your office's lighting. Or maybe your eyesight gets worse, or, most likely, the aura of perfection you placed on the painting wears off once access to the image becomes infinite. Similarly, spending every day on the beach may lead to sunburn, bug bites, or just too much time with your favorite person, so they are no longer your favorite person. Enduring perfection cannot exist because everything is constantly changing, whether it be an item's scarcity, the weather, or our desires. 

Examining our pursuit of perfection through this lens, it is easy to see how silly our pursuit of perfection is. We are expending enormous effort to subject ourselves to judgment and possibly achieve something that will briefly exist. The expected value from this journey can’t be more than minuscule.

None of this is to say that perfection doesn’t exist or that it can’t be attained. It absolutely can. But perfection doesn’t require seeking perfection; it can simply happen. And rather than beginning or continuing a pursuit based on judgment, we can set out or pivot to do and learn and become what we want. If we aren’t seeking a result, we can’t fail. Instead, we can only get better. And getting better is what made us happy in the first place.