Perfectionism

Perfectionism

I don’t think there’s any one particular thing that’s responsible.  It’s probably the culmination of a lot of different things.  I was thinking about it recently, as I prepared a sermon for church.  It really had me in my feelings, to be honest.  I’ve known about it for awhile, but I don’t regularly give thought to where I think it comes from.  For the most part, I tend to take it for granted.

If I look back on my life, perhaps it started in my youth.  Yeah, I remember those days.  There was one person in my family that was incredibly critical of me.  In my opinion, unnecessarily so.  Frequently, it’d be trivial things that, in the grand scheme, probably weren’t all that important.  Admittedly, from time to time, they were critical of me for more serious things, too.  Either way, it’s probably not coincidental that there are stretches of my youth where that criticism is, easily, what I remember more than anything else.  I could count on it.  Even at 25, for better or worse, those memories tend to be very, very salient.

Early on, I think I internalized that idea.  “There is always somebody somewhere looking to be critical of me.  Maybe it’s not you.  Maybe it’s not the next person.  But it’ll be somebody.  If you always hold yourself to a high standard, then there will be nothing that anyone can be critical of.”

Something like that.  You know, recently, I’ve been seeing perfectionism operate more as a defense mechanism in my life.  When you always remain critical of your own performance, you’re never, ever caught off guard by what anybody else has to say.  I’m sure you see how this spirals pretty fast.

I digress.  Hmmm, where was I.  Oh, yeah, growing up…

College made things better and made things worse.  I was a pretty mediocre student in high school.  I think I was reasonably bright, so I didn’t have to work very hard to get decent grades.  I was lazy.  I cut corners.  And I didn’t try very hard.  And that was okay for me, because I had pretty low standards in high school.  Then I started the college application process.  I started getting rejected by schools that, in my humble opinion, I was smart enough to get into but I didn’t have anything to show for it.  Maybe that’s when I internalized the “American Meritocracy”.  Everything is performance based.  When I got to the University of Pittsburgh, I told myself I was going to perform… and I wanted the performance to be perfect.  After all, if I wanted to make up for the regrets I had in high school, I needed to be a perfect student in college… at least that’s what I thought.

For awhile, things were perfect.  4.0 after 4.0.  100 after 100.  Heck, I had one class I finished with a 100 as my final grade:  I made a perfect score on everything.  I say college made things better, because I did need to apply myself.  I say college made things worse, because it exacerbated some preexisting perfectionistic tendencies.

After studying the Bible in 2012, and seeing I idolized my schoolwork and career, I had to take a step back and reevaluate my life.  I needed a healthier approach to school and work.  It’s not necessarily that simple though.  The reality is, when you become a Christian, sometimes you bring certain things into the church with you.  For some people, they bring their substance abuse.  For some people, they bring an unhealthy codependency on a person (or persons).  For some people, they bring their entitlement, laziness, or other character issues.  In my case, I brought my performance-oriented nature.  It’s something that’s manifested, in different ways, throughout my life.

Let me be clear: I never feel the need to be perfect for God.  That’s too high a standard.  But I do have very, very high standards.  Case & Point:  a few years ago, I was working on something for church with a team of other people, and after having a conversation following our meeting, it was brought to my attention that one of the girls I was working with felt I belittled her in front of the entire team.  I was devasted.  For, like, hours.  I work incredibly hard to make sure everyone feels respected and included.  I went home and cried that day.  I hurt someone I cared about, and I took it extremely hard.  Ironically, when we were in the parking lot discussing what I did that belittled her in the meeting, she explicitly told me, “It’s not that big a deal.”  But to me, it was that big a deal.  Don’t tell me it’s not.

It doesn’t have to always be that deep though.  In fact, that previous incident was probably a low.  This one is funny.  I had a trivia night a few years ago, and it was a super packed event.  Somehow, in my mind, I thought 3 medium pizzas would be enough to feed 25 people (WHAT?).  When I walked into that room with my 3 (TINY) medium pizzas and I saw how filled the room was… my heart sank.  We WERE going to have a great night… and then I ordered (only) 3 medium pizzas.  Eventually, I got over it.  But those first 30 minutes were hard.  Mind you, we’re talking about a trivia night, people.  It’s really not that deep.  But unfortunately, things aren’t always that simple.  It feels that deep.  At least in the moment.

Even recently, I had people over for brunch.  I tried this pancake recipe off the internet that had rave reviews.  It should have been pretty straight forward.  Man, when I say those were literally the most dense, chewy, unusual pancakes I’ve ever had the displeasure of making in my life, I mean it.  I should have just used box mix!  I have all these people here for brunch, and the pancakes and waffles are just dreadful.  Dag, I should have used Aunt Jemima or Hungry Jack.  It’s easy to laugh about now, but in the moment, I wasn’t laughing.  Beyond my annoyance with the unusually dense pancakes, I felt bad about my performance.

Oh, this one’s great.  It effects my social life, too.  I’ve been doing Latin dance for about two and a half years now.  Trained by Philadelphia’s finest, in fact, at a really dope studio a 5 minute walk from my apartment.  And then they turned it into a luxury apartment complex.  I have so many feelings about that.  Anyway, I’ve definitely had my bad experiences with dancing.  Some of these girls will legit dog you out if you’re not a good dancer (ESPECIALLY older women).  Again, it exacerbates the perfectionistic tendencies I already have: this dance needs to be perfect.  If it isn’t, this girl is going to dog me out.

In particular, I remember last year, I was getting to know a (really awesome) woman.  I flew in for the weekend, and we were going out that night to a really cool spot for salsa and bachata.  Throughout the night, she got a huge kick out of how serious I was about that dance floor.  It was kind of funny, but it kind of wasn’t.  Dancing is art, you know.  And I felt like I needed to perform.  I felt like I needed to deliver.  I felt like it needed to be perfect.  Every single dance.  And to be honest, I’ve had experiences that reinforce that.  Girls will dog you out.  Perfectionism isn’t just, like, a Monday through Friday thing.  This is probably something that effects most, if not all, areas of my life.

You can’t just flip a switch and turn it off, because you’re going out for the night.  It’s not that simple.

It’s no surprise, really.  It’s in my Myers Brigg: ISTJ.  We take pride in what we do.  In fact, I would say we go as far as to see our work as a reflection of ourselves.  That’s true, at least for me, on some occasions.  I think there’s good and bad in that, but that’s more or less the situation.  I’m hard working.  I’m a man of integrity.  I’m committed and loyal. And I always want my work to reflect that.  I don’t care if I’m making pancakes or if I’m submitting a grant to the National Science Foundation.  It’s all the same.  My work should reflect my values.  Again, I think that has the potential to be an amazing thing; however, at times, my perfectionistic tendencies can certainly lead me to pitfalls.

Interestingly, or not so interestingly, I now find myself in a profession with very, very perfectionistic individuals.  This is academia.  People have authored dozens of books, written dozens of publications, and presented countless working papers.  People will debate you, literally for over an hour, over your use of one word in a presentation that they believe you used incorrectly.  Everything else could have been wonderful!  You’ll have a 45 minute debate about that one word someone felt like you used out of context.  In many ways, people’s perfectionistic attitude in this profession is what makes them exceptional at what they do.  The flip side, like many things in life, is that same attitude can be a hinderance in other capacities as well.

Scholars make a name in this profession based on their ability to be critical of work.  Critical doesn’t mean rude.  It doesn’t mean unpleasant.  It just means critical… tell them everything you think they did incorrectly.  Your ability to do that makes you great, as an academic.  Your failure to do that reduces your ability to contribute to the field (not kidding; I served as a reviewer for a conference this year, and my job was to be critical of the papers submitted… if I can’t be critical, I can’t do the job).  Understandably, this means you get a lot of feedback, and a lot of it is bad.  But bad feedback doesn’t mean your work is bad.  Bad feedback simply means your paper could be better (even if it’s already exceptional).  You just have to be okay with getting a lot of bad feedback.

Like undergrad, I think the PhD program has the capacity to be both good and bad.  I say good, because I think it’ll normalize the idea of “imperfect work”.  Nothing is perfect.  Some work is better.  Some work is worse.  But it all falls into the category of being imperfect… so, just deal with it.  I say bad, because in some ways, that infatuation with ‘incremental improvement’ can be a pitfall, too.  It’s kind of like the hamster on the wheel that thinks they’re getting somewhere, but they’re still exactly where they’ve always been.  To be fair, in academia, getting feedback does help you produce better work… but it will never allow you to produce perfect work.  So, that’s a destination that won’t ever be reached.

For me, there’s still a lot to unpack, but here are some thoughts I have about perfectionism, in no particular order.  Maybe you’ll find some nuggets for yourself as well.

It’s not that deep. 

For a perfectionist, it always feels that deep. It always looks that deep.  It always sounds that deep.  But it’s not.  It’s not that deep.  If I could go back to my youth, I would tell myself that, multiple times.  It’s unfitting to be emotionally distressed about things that are really trivial.  If anything, you need to be focusing your resources on the things that matter a lot more.  Those things will vary from person to person, but it’s probably not the difference between 3 medium pizzas and 3 large pizzas.  It’s probably not the difference between light and fluffy pancakes and unusually dense and chewy pancakes.  It’s probably not the difference between the A- and the A.  Certainly, there has to be more to your life than those things.  To quote Charles Barkley, “I may be wrong, but I doubt it.”

***But sometimes, it is that deep, right?  I have friends in medicine.  Your “performance” can be the difference between life and death.  So, I’m curious to get your take.***

The things I care most about are usually things other people don’t even notice. 

This one is kind of annoying, actually.  But I think one of the consequences of having ridiculously high standards is you care about things that most people don’t.  It’s great to go above and beyond.  It’s awesome to go the extra mile.  But there will be occasions where that simply isn’t going to happen.  You know what else?  Most people won’t even notice.  Some people will.  But most people won’t.

What I do and how I do it are not the most important things about me. 

Don’t get me wrong.  My integrity, as a person, is very important to me.  Being trustworthy, reliable, and consistent are all very, very high on my priority list.  Yes, I do think that manifests in what I do and how I do it.  But, unless your interest is being Lebron James, Michael Jackson, Picasso, or another icon of that status, what you do and how you do it are not the most important things.  Your principles as a person are larger than your performance on any given day… I hope so, anyway.

Be realistic about circumstances.

When I was in undergrad, my grades were almost perfect.  I was in the top 2% of my graduating class.  Since starting this PhD program, my grades dropped off… like, A LOT.  I’m out here making 20’s, fam.  I made an F in a course.  If I’m not at the bottom of my class, I’m probably pretty close, haha.  I haven’t seen grades this low since high school, and I wasn’t even trying back then.  But this is a PhD program.  And I’m at a great school, and in some ways, I’m not entirely prepared for some of the courses I’m enrolled in.  Some of that is my program’s fault, for enrolling me in courses I have no business taking, because I don’t have the prerequisites.  Some of that is my fault, because it’s my 1^st year in a PhD program, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.  But, I need to be realistic about the situation, as opposed to holding myself to an arbitrarily high standard that doesn’t make sense in this specific case.

Would God be pleased with my effort here? 

As I mentioned before, I was pretty lazy in high school.  I cut corners and usually took the path of least resistance.  You can think of God as a paternal figure, watching from His easy chair in heaven as those 4 years unfolded.  I’m pretty sure He wasn’t particularly happy with my effort.  I wasn’t trying.  I wasn’t measuring up to my potential.  No, I don’t think He was happy with that at all.  At best, I was just getting by.  Fast forward to now, where I just completed Year 1 of my PhD.  I’m getting dragged in school, and my grades are even lower than they were in high school.  But you know what?  I’d like to think God would be pleased.  Looking back on Year 1, I have no doubt that I tried my very best.  It just sucks, because I have very little to show for it, haha.  Does it look pretty?  Absolutely not.  But I’m still being a man of integrity by doing my very best.  I think God is watching from His easy chair saying, “That’s my son!”

We’re only scratching the surface on this though.  For some people, being an underrepresented minority exacerbates their perfectionistic tendencies.  For instance, many women in male-dominated professions feel that.  Similarly, many underrepresented minorities do, too, lest they fulfill stereotypes about not being able to perform academically or professionally at a high level.  While I, personally, tend not to wrestle as much with those things, I certainly acknowledge many other people do.  I’ve been asked about how my mom’s death may have produced certain perfectionistic tendencies as well, to make her feel proud.  As far as I can tell, I don’t think that’s the case… I could be wrong, but I can’t say I see a strong link right now.

Also, as a 25-year-old single man, I’m starting to think more about marriage, family, and all that fun stuff.  Part of me is thinking about tiger parenting, and how the American Meritocracy will potentially situate itself in my home.  Part of me very much wants to raise my children with the immigrant mentality.  So many immigrants come to America with NOTHING.  An empty bank account and a pocket full of dreams.

I call it the spirit of Nigerian hustle: Nigerians be out here with 3 different jobs and sending their kids to Harvard.  Or you have the reverse, Nigerians with 3 degrees, sending their kids on a full-ride to Yale.  Stories like that certainly aren’t specific to Nigerians, you know.

But if I do get married, depending on where my wife is from, she could be coming with her own experiences with perfectionism, the American Meritocracy, and sky-high standards. I believe the author of the tiger parenting book was Asian American… it’s definitely a thing in that community, too.  My Indian, Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese friends have alluded to that in various capacities.

The other side of me is thinking about how these households where families can be very critical, or have extremely high standards, negatively affect the kids… sometimes, a lot.  There’s plenty of research on that.  But, it also produces results.

Say what you will, but I graduated in the top 2% of my class, and I’m enrolled in a PhD program at a world-renowned institution.  Like almost everything in life, I find myself in a situation where I have to keep the good and get rid of the bad.  But it’s difficult to identify the breakdowns when you’re talking about 25 years worth of experiences.  Can I really pinpoint individual experiences that contribute to my perfectionism today???  That’s actually pretty hard to do.  The other question would be on accountability, right?  Many good people get off track in life by failing to take accountability for their lives, pointing the finger at others instead.  So how does that factor in? Above and beyond your own experiences, isn’t there an individual element of accountability, too?  Don’t you decide who you want to be?  Hmmm.

Suffice to say there are a lot of considerations, and people are very complex.  There’s a lot that can produce or exacerbate perfectionistic tendencies.  And honestly, I don’t know if I did a great job capturing any of this (ironically).  Either way, I have to start working on another piece, but I’d love your thoughts if you’d like to weigh in.

More random thoughts.

Nnamdi