Perfectionism
Note: I’ve switched over to Substack for this and some of my other publications—please excuse the mess and mistakes as I get things reestablished and tidied up.
Perfectionism
It’s wonderful (and often laudable) to want to do well, get better at things, perhaps even perform at a notably high level (ideally compared to past versions of yourself, though sometimes competition with others can be healthy, too).
It’s generally less-wonderful to aim for perfection.
Because although aiming for well-thought-out ideals can help us grow (by giving us a magnetic North with which to calibrate our ambition-compasses), the concept of “perfect” is kind of like the concept of “infinite”: if you try to count that high you’ll only ever be disappointed, and you’ll probably make non-optimal decisions as a consequence, despite seeming to aim for optimality.
Here’s a piece on some of the negative outcomes associated with “perfectionism”: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/27/20975989/perfect-mental-health-perfectionism
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