A Work-in-Progress (That's Me!)

Are you perfect? I definitely know I'm not. But I have a problem with that. You see, I've always struggled with perfectionism to the extreme, and academically have always excelled, with perfect grades all the time. I think the issue originated with my dad-I felt like no matter what I did, if I didn't do everything perfectly, he'd find fault and yell at me for it. I felt like, unless I was perfect, he didn't love me. It took me a while to catch on that it didn't matter if I DID manage to do it all perfectly… you can't make someone love you. But that isn't the point here today- the point is that one of my favorite authors ever, Wendelin Van Draanen, and her husband Mark Parsons (also an author), recently really helped me gain some perspective. He wrote a brilliant post called Anything is Better Than Nothing(click for the original post), about taking things one step at a time, and about doing as much as you can and then moving on. I commented sharing my frustrations with myself and perfection, and both of them took the time to give me some amazing advice. I know I'm not the only one who has a perfectionism issue, and really want to share their words of wisdom with you guys. From the lovely Wendelin,

"Elizabeth! I just posted this week's entry when your comment chimed in. I so want to HUG YOU and tell you to not be so hard on yourself. Everything is a work-in-progress, especially ourselves. So just work and progress on your essay and on letting yourself be human. It's OKAY!"

And then from Mr. Mark,

"Some things to keep in mind: When in high school, no one ever asks what grade you got in 7th grade history, right? And once you’re accepted into college, no one cares about how well you did in algebra as a high school freshman. And after you finish college, NO ONE will ever ask what your GPA in college was – they just want to know what your degree was in. And finally, in the ‘real world’ after academia, there aren’t specific letter grades at all for most activities, even work-related ones. The metric that really matters is, how happy & healthy are you and the ones you love? And sometimes, the more you can let perfection go in favor of balance, the happier you might be. So… a lower grade can actually lead to a higher grade, if you can let things go. ‘Letting go’ doesn’t mean you don’t care. It just means you realize that there is a finite amount of time and energy to dedicate to any one project, so when you’ve done the best you can do at that particular point in time, you pat your project on the head and put it out there into the universe with good wishes, then you get on to the next thing. Saying you’re ‘imperfect’ is simply saying you’re human. Welcome to the club - we are all imperfect in some way or another. And sometimes those little imperfections are what give us character and uniqueness, so hooray for imperfection! (And speaking as a musician, perfection = boring.) I think Wendelin has it exactly right – we are all a work-in-progress. As long as we care, and we try to improve and explore and grow, we’re on the right path. No matter how imperfect the results at that particular time."

Their words really spoke to me, and I wasn't in a good place emotionally at the time, so I couldn't be more grateful to them for helping me through that really rough night/several days. I really hope that their words can touch your heart as well, and that if you're like me in regards to perfectionism, you'll join me on the mission of accepting imperfections. Love you guys <3 P.S. Her blog is awesome in general, as are her books, so if you want to learn more, check it out here.