I Want Perfection and I Want It Now!

Guest Writer: Sue Fitzmaurice, author of “Angel’s in the Architecture”

Where does this idea come from?!  And why is our worst case of perfectionism usually focused on ourselves, or those closest to us.  People, in other words.  Non-perfect beings.

I bet almost all of us have this disease in some form or another.  We expect the impossible from both ourselves AND others, an expectation that can only lead to failure, and therefore disappointment.

Here’s some typical examples:

♦We expect our teenagers’ bedrooms to always be tidy.  Yeah, right.  And who is upset when it’s not?  Not them, that’s for sure.

♦We expect the bathing suit we wore last summer to still fit.  uh-huh, uh-huh…

♦We are upset that at age 40-plus we don’t look as young as we used to, and that at 50-plus it seems to be speeding up…

♦We expect never to say the wrong thing.  Ever.  Shouldn’t we be smarter than that by now?

♦We expect to live in the perfect house in the perfect street, with the perfect car and the perfect spouse and perfect children and one totally house-trained dog, or maybe two.

♦We expect to get on with our parents by now.  And our siblings. And because we are the black sheep of the family, we do wonder whether we should have tried harder not to be so… well… black-sheep’ish.

♦And let’s not start on the haranguing we give our partners…  shall I go on?  Nah… ya get the picture.

So…  secretly (apparently), YOU’re different – YOU really are useless – you’re saying it to yourself right now – I know!  No one else knows this about THEMselves or anything… just you.  Oh good grief.

How did that get there?!!  Seriously!  How?!  Why?!

This has to be our most dangerous trait, as humans, and especially as women and mothers.  It’s damaging to ourselves and to those we love.

Can’t ‘good enough’, ‘okay’ and even plain ‘normal’ do it?

So how about it? Me, I’m 5kg heavier than I’d like to be flying to the Sunshine Coast in Australia on the weekend, where I do intend to be in my bathing suit.  Probably not my bikini though eh…

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