A few days ago, a friend asked me if there was a difference between trying to do one’s best and trying to be perfect. He wondered if what I call ‘doing my best’ is the same as what he calls ‘trying to be perfect’. I didn’t disagree completely as I do think that the concept of doing one’s best is very closely tied with what how one describes ‘best’. As with many things in life, it is in the mind of each person how we choose to look at something. So, I chose to explain how I look at it. And, I think that there is surely a difference between the two.
For one, the biggest difference lies in the impact the two kinds of thinking can have on my morale. If I am trying to be perfect, I always see the end result as failure as there will always be a better way doing what I’ve done. Sometimes that better version could be my own improvisation and many times it would be someone who can do it better than me. Whereas, if I’m trying to do my best I will feel satisfied with my effort even if the end result could be improved by someone. One more thing that I feel happens when I try to be perfect is that I am in a race with others and always comparing myself with others, whereas when I am trying to do my best I am only trying to do better than yesterday. As you can imagine, trying to be perfect, obviously can put a lot of pressure on oneself. But I know for a fact, from my own experiences, that it also puts a tremendous amount of pressure on others. For one, others around me end up having to put up with an always unhappy person who is only worried about getting everything right. In fact, I can say this with some certainty as I have been there before and it was just not fun enough. If it wasn’t fun for me, imagine the poor souls around me!
Now that I have understood that perfection is a journey and not a destination, I surely seem to be in a better place in life. Of course, the better place is my own definition and it need to be the same for others. When earlier I read books and motivational quotes about ‘competing with one’s own self’ and ‘defining success in one’s own terms’, it all looked quite clichéd and improbable. However, now that I have had my own experiences of sweating over the wrong things in life, I do see what it means to just compete with one’s own self and be happy with what I have. Coincidentally, the same day as when my friend asked me this question, I was talking to my husband about how I feel quite happy about not fearing failure anymore and just concentrating on doing things better than what I did yesterday. Obviously, that statement also made me realize that I was always in fear of a failure that was just in my head because I was so worried about being perfect.
Finally, let me tell you that if you’re reading this and thinking ‘crap, crap, crap’ in your head, I can completely empathize with you. However, with whatever little bit of success I’ve had with finding my way around my mind I call a maze, I’ve come to see one thing. And that is, if there is one truth that is overarching in our lives, it is the fact that our experiences shape us and until we realize for ourselves what is true and what is not, everyone else’s thoughts (and that is probably a lot in the Web 2.0 world, given there are hundreds of blogs and unpublished amateurs like me!) is all unfounded.
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