I’ve always been a perfectionist, too. I hide my massive pile of failures underneath my tiny, thin veneer of things I did right. I love reading the failure quotes. For some reason, those I so easily forget. Only one person gets to stand on the podium at a time and wear a gold medal. Why so many of us think we’re all supposed to be there, I don’t understand. Thank you for this beautiful reminder that life is filled with failures, if we’re doing something.
Wow, what a powerful perspective, Joy: "only one person gets to stand on the podium at a time and wear a gold medal." There's so much meat in this one sentence. I appreciate how you expounded on what I wrote. Thank you for this!
Oh how I can relate to this post! Perfectionism was valued in my family and that is what the adults expected from me since Kindergarden. They had high expectations of me going to college on a scholarship. I did succeed in getting one at a college that was not a fit for me. I hated it and dropped out. I started pressing shirts in a drycleaners and my life took a totally different path. Sometimes, when I'm feeling bad about myself, I think I failed by not doing things the conventional way. I got married too young and my marriage was fraught with discord. It affected my children and I feel I failed them because of that. I can be very hard on myself. But then I think about how far I've come, and I have to tell my inner critic to shut up and have more self compassion.
Yes, Doreen, you are onto something wise here. You mention the word convention, and I think that has a lot to do with our understanding and perception of success/perfection/failure. But each of us is nuanced, or unique as they said when I was little. Convention often leads us to this idea that we have somehow failed, because we didn't fit into a certain mold or container that the majority of people seem to. But I've also come to believe that most of us don't fit neatly into containers, anyway. That's what having a daughter with a rare genetic diagnosis has taught me: everyone has their own path/journey, and that's good. That's what makes the growth possible.
Jeannie, this is an extraordinary, insightful post. I did recognize some of the failure quotes, but they only serve me for a millisecond.
Like you, I'm a perfectionist. From the time I was in junior high school, I had my whole life planned out for me -- by me. I had such focus for a career that would mean -- to me and others -- that I achieved success. I believed I would get married to a great guy and have kids, living a life without failure.
Well, I didn't expect not to get that career, marry the wrong guy, get cancer and deal with infertility. I luckily did adopt a child.
I think we perfectionists tend to build an illusion of life that doesn't include failing. And failure really is a perception, after all, and perceptions are no reflection of reality. We might think we are failures, when that word is loaded with so many subjective meanings. I'm trying to be kinder to myself -- but it's definitely not always easy.
I can relate, Beth, to the image of a "perfect" life that does not in any way pan out the way I thought it would. Like you, I thought I would take off in my career as a school counselor, get married, have a few kids, build a nice American family life. Nope. I got fired from my job as a school counselor, struggled with infertility, gave birth to a child with a rare genetic diagnosis, and you know the rest.
Yet here we are. I am so grateful you are here, sharing your story. And I agree that the connotation of the word failure is what projects our feelings and thoughts about what it means to be successful or not. Maybe failure isn't even the right word, except I think that by redefining what it means--that it's not about never making mistakes or wrong turns or falling flat on our noses, but instead it's about growth and learning and becoming--maybe it will feel less troubling to those of us who struggle with perfectionism.
I love how you highlight the tension between "hanging on" and "letting go." It's not an either/or, but a messy dance between the two. We're constantly navigating this middle ground, aren't we? It's in that space of uncertainty that real growth happens, even if it's uncomfortable.
Yes! This is one of the reasons I love to explore writing about ambivalence and paradox. It seems more prevalent to me as I age, or maybe it's what happens in emotional and spiritual growth.
Last May, I began a 1,000-mile hiking quest. I finished it last month. I set out on the challenge after too many years of failure in terms of business and income. I knew I had to redefine “success.” I learned an awful lot about myself and came back a different person. I really enjoyed reading your post. Thank you.
Your essay brings to mind two familiar fantasy stories that are connected with guaranteed success. The first is the story of King Midas, which I think has been credited to the fabulist (?) Aesop. When I was very young my mother thrift-shopped a book of his fables that was very old at the time and falling apart. It was literally in pieces after I’d read it over and over. The other fantasy is an episode of “The Twilight Zone “ about a small-time hoodlum who meets an enigmatic man played by Sebastian Cabot who grants his every desire and wish. This bum quickly becomes bored and miserable as he experiences constant and guaranteed success with whatever he does, which consists mostly of the shallow pursuits like gambling and scoring with women. Naturally by the end of the script he finds out that he is dead and has gone to The Bad Place.
In real life there is risk involved with everything we do. I might go for a drink of water and twist my ankle, or, much much worse, step on a cat’s tail. I might go bungee-jumping and have my greatest thrill or I might end my life right then and there. A much greater and more possibly beneficial undertaking will generally have a correspondingly greater potential risk/reward connected to it. I like the quotes on failure that you have listed. Some are familiar to me and others are completely new. Thanks a lot!
I’m proud of you for taking a shot at the opportunities that have come your way. By that I mean the opportunities that appealed to you and made sense to you at the time. And I’m proud of you for sharing them here with others. Most of my life I’ve been extremely adverse to taking risks of any kind. I’m not assigning a value judgement to the way I’ve lived my life, I’m just describing the way I’ve approached decision-making. You and I would seem to have very different approaches to making life choices. One (yours) would be to take on something that requires a lot of dedication and hard work, and to fall short of the lofty aspirations that one desired. The other (mine) would be to do just enough to get by, to look for every shortcut and to expend as little time and energy on the cares of this life and to spend enormous amounts of time on hobbies that bring nothing but the joy of doing. Is one approach better or more praiseworthy than the other? Who can say?
I have few regrets about the decisions I’ve made concerning my career opportunities. A lot of people would say that I, with my IQ of 142 and my straight A’s in everything but mathematics, am an underachiever at best and a failure at worst. I’ve been called a total waste to my face. It might bother me for a moment, I’m human after all, but half a minute later I’d probably be thinking about my next “masterpiece” in wood or my upcoming trip to the thrift store. I’d rather just work with my hands and leave all that intellectual stuff to someone else.
I don’t have anything really constructive to say here. I know that you love and appreciate the lovely family that you have. I’m happy and proud for you and I hope that you can find a place of contentment and peace where you can embrace your past efforts, whatever the outcomes, and just enjoy being Jeannie Ewing, my very special correspondent and friend! I hope this long comment finds you happy and healthy in spirit and body. Hugs and kisses for your budding philosopher, Sarah!
Rafael, what a thoughtful and in-depth comment you shared here. I have a few thoughts.
First, I don't think one approach to life is better or worse than another. It's akin, to me, of the story of Martha and Mary in the Bible: Martha is the nose-to-the-grindstone hard worker, while Mary is the one enjoying the time she has listening to Jesus. Now, Martha is chided for her busyness, yes, but she is still a good woman and is doing what needs to be done. The lesson, or bottom line for me, is this: both hard work and leisure have their place in our lives.
St. Thomas Aquinas actually coined a term called "eutrapalia," which means "the order of right recreation." I think about that a lot, because coming from the Catholic tradition, I was raised to believe that work and suffering are the highest moral good, if we allow ourselves to be transformed by our hardships and do not shy away from them. But to know that there is, in fact, a time and place for doing "nothing," for rest and enjoyment of life--well, how else do artists create what they impart to us, what becomes immortalized by their hands or eyes or ears or voices?
For me, life has been about learning to overcome the extreme tendencies in my personality toward perfection, but it has happened in small increments, in knowing myself more honestly--that how I was raised by my father, whose trope was, "Hard work is the reward for hard work," plus the interpretation of my religion mostly by my mother, contributed to this (false) idea that perfection was the only pathway for me to find love, or to find anything. I have had to unspool a lot since Sarah's birth, and perfection was the first to go.
So what you share here is worthy of a deeper conversation. Thank you for that.
Thank you Jeannie for your thoughtful reply. I was raised Catholic as well. We all have our “Martha” side and our “Mary” sides, I guess. I’ve been watching interviews on YouTube with Diana Rigg. She had a lot of wisdom to share about her career. She was in the wildly successful “The Avengers” television series and also a James Bond movie that bombed. Why don’t we chat if you have the time in your busy work and family life. Looking forward to your next post!
I’ve always been a perfectionist, too. I hide my massive pile of failures underneath my tiny, thin veneer of things I did right. I love reading the failure quotes. For some reason, those I so easily forget. Only one person gets to stand on the podium at a time and wear a gold medal. Why so many of us think we’re all supposed to be there, I don’t understand. Thank you for this beautiful reminder that life is filled with failures, if we’re doing something.
Wow, what a powerful perspective, Joy: "only one person gets to stand on the podium at a time and wear a gold medal." There's so much meat in this one sentence. I appreciate how you expounded on what I wrote. Thank you for this!
Oh how I can relate to this post! Perfectionism was valued in my family and that is what the adults expected from me since Kindergarden. They had high expectations of me going to college on a scholarship. I did succeed in getting one at a college that was not a fit for me. I hated it and dropped out. I started pressing shirts in a drycleaners and my life took a totally different path. Sometimes, when I'm feeling bad about myself, I think I failed by not doing things the conventional way. I got married too young and my marriage was fraught with discord. It affected my children and I feel I failed them because of that. I can be very hard on myself. But then I think about how far I've come, and I have to tell my inner critic to shut up and have more self compassion.
Yes, Doreen, you are onto something wise here. You mention the word convention, and I think that has a lot to do with our understanding and perception of success/perfection/failure. But each of us is nuanced, or unique as they said when I was little. Convention often leads us to this idea that we have somehow failed, because we didn't fit into a certain mold or container that the majority of people seem to. But I've also come to believe that most of us don't fit neatly into containers, anyway. That's what having a daughter with a rare genetic diagnosis has taught me: everyone has their own path/journey, and that's good. That's what makes the growth possible.
Thank you Jeannie. As a mom of two neuro divergent (adult) children, I'm still learning that.
That’s the wisdom that can only come through living it. Peace be with you.
Thank you Rafael.
Jeannie, this is an extraordinary, insightful post. I did recognize some of the failure quotes, but they only serve me for a millisecond.
Like you, I'm a perfectionist. From the time I was in junior high school, I had my whole life planned out for me -- by me. I had such focus for a career that would mean -- to me and others -- that I achieved success. I believed I would get married to a great guy and have kids, living a life without failure.
Well, I didn't expect not to get that career, marry the wrong guy, get cancer and deal with infertility. I luckily did adopt a child.
I think we perfectionists tend to build an illusion of life that doesn't include failing. And failure really is a perception, after all, and perceptions are no reflection of reality. We might think we are failures, when that word is loaded with so many subjective meanings. I'm trying to be kinder to myself -- but it's definitely not always easy.
I can relate, Beth, to the image of a "perfect" life that does not in any way pan out the way I thought it would. Like you, I thought I would take off in my career as a school counselor, get married, have a few kids, build a nice American family life. Nope. I got fired from my job as a school counselor, struggled with infertility, gave birth to a child with a rare genetic diagnosis, and you know the rest.
Yet here we are. I am so grateful you are here, sharing your story. And I agree that the connotation of the word failure is what projects our feelings and thoughts about what it means to be successful or not. Maybe failure isn't even the right word, except I think that by redefining what it means--that it's not about never making mistakes or wrong turns or falling flat on our noses, but instead it's about growth and learning and becoming--maybe it will feel less troubling to those of us who struggle with perfectionism.
Thank you for such an insightful response Jeannie. Yes, it's a good idea to redefine failure. Maybe we could call them setbacks?
I like setbacks a lot better!
I love how you highlight the tension between "hanging on" and "letting go." It's not an either/or, but a messy dance between the two. We're constantly navigating this middle ground, aren't we? It's in that space of uncertainty that real growth happens, even if it's uncomfortable.
Yes! This is one of the reasons I love to explore writing about ambivalence and paradox. It seems more prevalent to me as I age, or maybe it's what happens in emotional and spiritual growth.
Last May, I began a 1,000-mile hiking quest. I finished it last month. I set out on the challenge after too many years of failure in terms of business and income. I knew I had to redefine “success.” I learned an awful lot about myself and came back a different person. I really enjoyed reading your post. Thank you.
That sounds like an incredible journey, Brenda. Have you written about it?
Just finishing the draft now. The Woman on the Ferry: 1,000 Miles to Redefine Success and Discover Joy. It has been an incredible journey.
I’d love it if you tagged me in your post, so I can read it when you publish it, Brenda!
Your essay brings to mind two familiar fantasy stories that are connected with guaranteed success. The first is the story of King Midas, which I think has been credited to the fabulist (?) Aesop. When I was very young my mother thrift-shopped a book of his fables that was very old at the time and falling apart. It was literally in pieces after I’d read it over and over. The other fantasy is an episode of “The Twilight Zone “ about a small-time hoodlum who meets an enigmatic man played by Sebastian Cabot who grants his every desire and wish. This bum quickly becomes bored and miserable as he experiences constant and guaranteed success with whatever he does, which consists mostly of the shallow pursuits like gambling and scoring with women. Naturally by the end of the script he finds out that he is dead and has gone to The Bad Place.
In real life there is risk involved with everything we do. I might go for a drink of water and twist my ankle, or, much much worse, step on a cat’s tail. I might go bungee-jumping and have my greatest thrill or I might end my life right then and there. A much greater and more possibly beneficial undertaking will generally have a correspondingly greater potential risk/reward connected to it. I like the quotes on failure that you have listed. Some are familiar to me and others are completely new. Thanks a lot!
I’m proud of you for taking a shot at the opportunities that have come your way. By that I mean the opportunities that appealed to you and made sense to you at the time. And I’m proud of you for sharing them here with others. Most of my life I’ve been extremely adverse to taking risks of any kind. I’m not assigning a value judgement to the way I’ve lived my life, I’m just describing the way I’ve approached decision-making. You and I would seem to have very different approaches to making life choices. One (yours) would be to take on something that requires a lot of dedication and hard work, and to fall short of the lofty aspirations that one desired. The other (mine) would be to do just enough to get by, to look for every shortcut and to expend as little time and energy on the cares of this life and to spend enormous amounts of time on hobbies that bring nothing but the joy of doing. Is one approach better or more praiseworthy than the other? Who can say?
I have few regrets about the decisions I’ve made concerning my career opportunities. A lot of people would say that I, with my IQ of 142 and my straight A’s in everything but mathematics, am an underachiever at best and a failure at worst. I’ve been called a total waste to my face. It might bother me for a moment, I’m human after all, but half a minute later I’d probably be thinking about my next “masterpiece” in wood or my upcoming trip to the thrift store. I’d rather just work with my hands and leave all that intellectual stuff to someone else.
I don’t have anything really constructive to say here. I know that you love and appreciate the lovely family that you have. I’m happy and proud for you and I hope that you can find a place of contentment and peace where you can embrace your past efforts, whatever the outcomes, and just enjoy being Jeannie Ewing, my very special correspondent and friend! I hope this long comment finds you happy and healthy in spirit and body. Hugs and kisses for your budding philosopher, Sarah!
Rafael, what a thoughtful and in-depth comment you shared here. I have a few thoughts.
First, I don't think one approach to life is better or worse than another. It's akin, to me, of the story of Martha and Mary in the Bible: Martha is the nose-to-the-grindstone hard worker, while Mary is the one enjoying the time she has listening to Jesus. Now, Martha is chided for her busyness, yes, but she is still a good woman and is doing what needs to be done. The lesson, or bottom line for me, is this: both hard work and leisure have their place in our lives.
St. Thomas Aquinas actually coined a term called "eutrapalia," which means "the order of right recreation." I think about that a lot, because coming from the Catholic tradition, I was raised to believe that work and suffering are the highest moral good, if we allow ourselves to be transformed by our hardships and do not shy away from them. But to know that there is, in fact, a time and place for doing "nothing," for rest and enjoyment of life--well, how else do artists create what they impart to us, what becomes immortalized by their hands or eyes or ears or voices?
For me, life has been about learning to overcome the extreme tendencies in my personality toward perfection, but it has happened in small increments, in knowing myself more honestly--that how I was raised by my father, whose trope was, "Hard work is the reward for hard work," plus the interpretation of my religion mostly by my mother, contributed to this (false) idea that perfection was the only pathway for me to find love, or to find anything. I have had to unspool a lot since Sarah's birth, and perfection was the first to go.
So what you share here is worthy of a deeper conversation. Thank you for that.
Thank you Jeannie for your thoughtful reply. I was raised Catholic as well. We all have our “Martha” side and our “Mary” sides, I guess. I’ve been watching interviews on YouTube with Diana Rigg. She had a lot of wisdom to share about her career. She was in the wildly successful “The Avengers” television series and also a James Bond movie that bombed. Why don’t we chat if you have the time in your busy work and family life. Looking forward to your next post!
Thank you. Such comforting words.
So glad to hear, Anna.