‘I Want to Be a Perfect Person’
As I drive weekly between the Philadelphia and Stone Harbor offices, I pass a road sign at the edge of a driveway that makes me smile. In commanding black letters, it heralds “No PERFECT PEOPLE allowed.” Driving by the sign, I often reflect on how many clients drive for perfection. Rebecca was one of these clients until recently.
Rebecca’s cow brown eyes looked upwards, signaling deep thought. “But my goal is to be a really perfect person.” Rebecca meant it.
She had spent the last five years careening between disappointments while she lost and gained the same 20 pounds twice. Her choice of boyfriends was so dangerous that she frequently woke with a start, hoping valiantly that one would call her for a midnight tryst that very night. Rebecca found The Coché Center after she took a job that brought her to Philadelphia, where she knew practically nobody. She hated the job and bemoaned her life.
Rebecca was working in cognitive psychotherapy with Stephen Schueller, a trainee at The Coché Center completing his degree in Clinical Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where I teach. Rebecca respected Stephen; tall and gentle, he had a searching way of asking questions. “Why be a perfect person? How many really perfect people do you know?”
The question dislodged Rebecca’s complacency. “Well…I know zero perfect people.”
“Me too,” Stephen said, “So between us, we don’t know anybody perfect. Right?”
Unwilling to consider his implication, Rebecca was quick to retort, “But I want to be happy. Is that too much to ask? Wouldn’t I be happier if I were perfect? I think I need to be perfect to be happy.”
Stephen continued quietly, “Have you ever considered that continuing to strive for perfection actually keeps you from being happy? Let me help you understand why being perfect and being happy don’t go together. You have decided that you need to achieve unachievable future goals in order to happy.
You want the perfect boyfriend, a high-paying job, a size 10 wardrobe, and you have none of these. But the good news is that these are not the things that will make you happy. Did you ever consider that humans are imperfect by definition? Perfection is an ideal, but what you want to shoot for is the optimal achievement of realistic life goals. Aiming realistically allows you to feel satisfied with most of your life most of the time. Rebecca nodded, soaking in the wisdom that Stephen offered her.
To feel happy, Rebecca needs to live in the present instead of the future. She needs to be appreciative for the small daily joys of her life, and to collect small and repeated moments of enjoyment each day. For her this might mean a satisfying 15-mile bike tour, a cup of green tea with a new girlfriend, or a hot shower with fresh lemon bath gel. The drive for perfection actually distracts from enjoying what makes us happy. Instead of perfection, Rebecca might strive to be good enough, enough of the time.
As Rebecca sponged up what Stephen said, her eyes began to dance. “You mean that all these years I’ve gotten it all wrong and tried to be perfect when I don’t have to be perfect at all?”
“Yes. Your goal might be to flourish rather than achieve perfection.” Rebecca nodded in understanding, absorbing the new idea with relish. Rebecca has begun her journey. We wish her well.
Dr. Dan Gilbert, a social psychologist, says that we need to experiment with bits of new behavior aimed at happier lives. We literally stumble towards better answers for our lives. Far from a beeline towards perfection, the growth process is one of experimental investigation. Perfection is merely an idea in our head. Experimentation allows us to shape our attempts until we can make life work better, and making life work makes us happy.
How might your life change if you abandoned any goal of perfection and replaced it with an emphasis on enjoying more daily moments in your life? What makes you happy each day? My day starts right with a sunrise beach walk with Whitby, our Portuguese water dog, followed by an hour with husband John, a mug of half-decaf French Roast and a huge navel orange in wedges, and me sitting on a beat up white rocker at the edge of the marshlands.
That hour makes me smile inside. And you? What makes you smile inside? Just for fun, try replacing the drive for perfection with stumbling towards people and activities that make you happy. Others just might experience you as more relaxed and fun to be with. And that has to be good.
To Read: Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert, Ph.D. New York: Knopf.
(Coche of Stone Harbor educates the public in mental health issues. She can be reached at jmcoche@gmail.com or 215-859-1050.)
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