“If we make it through this month without hating each other, I will know we really can be friends.”

My head was spinning, jet lag lingered in an ache that was settling deep into my bones, and none of the world seemed to even care. Decisions had to be made. Meetings needed to take place. Things needed to get done.

We were down from our normal team of seven to three, and though our programs were lessened, with interns afoot and a full course of language school to conquer, there still was more than I could handle. At least, there was more than I could handle in the emotional state I was in. I don’t even remember how many times I snapped at people, or just was generally unkind. All sorts of ugly was coming out, and I was just getting more tired. So I turned to my teammate Emily, said sorry for what felt like the hundredth time that week, and realized that she was getting a front row seat to some of the more repulsive parts of my brokenness.

Perfectionist.

People use the word so lightly. They chuckle and pretend like it is some minor vice that they are actually proud to confess. Western society loves quality, skill, and competence, and so this personality “problem” can almost be lauded as noble.

Have you seen a perfectionist when they are in a pinch? Have you seen one with not enough time or resources? Have you seen one that is beginning to fail at something that is actually important?

It’s anything but noble.

It’s harsh. Task is lifted above the people involved. You begin to see irrational responses from the perfectionist, because they don’t have time to see the situation clearly while they juggle their real and imaginary expectations of how this was supposed to go. Pride comes out. People start being attacked.

Then a moment of clarity comes, and the perfectionist realizes what he or she is doing to the people around them, and starts the process of beating themselves up. “Why did you just snap at him? He wasn’t doing anything. You know better. You should keep this under control. You’re failing at managing the project, now you’re failing to manage yourself.” It’s a Teufelskreis (Downward Spiral).

And I beat myself up. And I can’t believe after all this time trying to work on who I am and how I interact with people that I can’t get this part of me under control. I know that perfectionism is poison. How could I still let it run through my veins?

—

 

“It must be understood that the children of light are foolish not merely because they underestimate the power of self-interest among the children of darkness. They underestimate this power among themselves.” – Reinhold Niebuhr

 

 

—

Saturday comes again, and asks that I spend some time refueling. Naturally, that means it’s time to read philosophy papers in a coffee shop. And for the God-knows-eth time, I am hit upside the face by a crazy Frenchman: Jean-Paul Sartre.

Sartre writes about the struggle of understanding what it means to be able to change. So many fall into the trap of believing that they can never change from what they’ve been, that they will always be stuck in the same place as the past. And yet, there is also a misstep that occurs when one overestimates their ability to change. Choice, will, and freedom do not remain unrestrained by reality. You lie to yourself when you tell yourself that you can simply choose to be different from how you have always been.

Intriguingly, given his stark atheistic disposition, he calls this imbalance, “bad faith.”

From my Christian perspective, it becomes clear that there is a misstep that occurs when one overestimates the ease and speed of transformation. There’s a problem that comes when you forget how broken we really are, and how bad we can be to each other. And while I desire to make no excuses for anyone, we lie when we think that we are not stuck.

And while that feels hopeless to write, I know it’s not. Grace can make “bad faith” right. And when I slow down enough to be oriented by Grace, she tells me that it was never my job to “get it right” in the first place.

There’s mystery here… that not getting it right, indeed makes it right. This mystery of Grace dissolves the poison of perfectionism.

The beautiful thing is, Grace will even be there when I forget this on Monday.

 

Still Wandering,

Tony