Personal Growth- Perfection

What I want to say is ha, ha, and ha again to the perception of being able to have in the pursuit of Personal Growth-Perfection in ones life. I think that I have already mentioned that I don’t know of anyone who has achieved the “perfect” status yet. Perfection would make us far too exquisite to live in an imperfect world, don’t you think? Life just isn’t perfect, it is full of trial and error, and doing something over and over until we are good at it but becoming perfect is just a state of mind.

To slow down a bit, let us just think about this for a moment and mull over the idea about becoming perfect. What does the word mean anyway; exactly? Webster states perfect: “flawless and complete, unmodified”. Now, shall I ask you again if you think you know someone who has worked on their Personal Growth and is in the state of Perfection?

There is nothing wrong with wanting to do things well, in an orderly manner and do it right the first time. That is normal for anyone who takes pride in what they do and if we seek Personal Growth we may not obtain perfection but we can do what we do well. I am kind of like that myself. My Mama taught me that and she was right. Always do it right the first time and it will save you time and effort, she would say. Do I always accomplish that? No, and it really gets to me because of my strong desire to succeed. That is one of my imperfect traits; I do not take criticism well. I work on it and there is a difference in corrective criticism and plain old, I can do this better than you!

I will give you an example of someone trying to be in a state of perfection while making others feel totally inadequate. I was working on a contract job and we were auditing what someone else has already audited, which sounds unusual anyway and it was, but nonetheless, that is what we were doing. We were auditing files for adherence to policies, procedures and investor guidelines. If we found something different than was presented to us, we had to write it up and explain in so many words how it really was and why but you could only be positive and say it in as few words as possible. After one group looked at these files the first time, another group audited what we looked at and then management looked at what the latter group looked at. I know, this sounds like a waste of time, money and management… it was, but let me finish the story. It made no difference how any of us explained it, the next group would change it into their words and then management (there was two levels of management and both changed it yet again) would change it into their words. Talking about “Quality Control”, I called it “control quality”. Do I think they needed to work on Personal Growth- without trying to be perfect? Yes, I was making a sizable hourly rate for my work, I don’t know about the others, but I felt it was a waste of my efforts to say the least while being a waste of the Companies money. It is easy for me to see how some institutions needed the bail out money to survive and I could see it first hand. I had never seen such a waste of time, money and other people’s knowledge ignored, while one or two people decided how to phrase a sentence or two. It was not only my opinion either, others felt the same way. Now, I am trying not to judge others, and do not think it profits any by doing so but this is an example of someone who cannot accept the ability of someone as being good enough. It amounted to the fact that it was the top management’s way or the highway!!! Do I think they were perfect? Nope! Not the least and who were they trying to convenience anyway….could it have been themselves?

In our Personal Growth efforts it is evident that we will never be flawless or in a state of Perfection, not in my mind anyway. Our work can be excellent and we may present our physical self in an attractive way but we will never be flawless or without some kind of modification or need. Personally, if my hair looks great, my eye may be swollen and my makeup smeared. If my suite is pressed just right, my blouse may have a spot on it, making me keep my jacket on all day. It goes on and on.

I believe in our search for Personal Growth- Perfection is a waste of time. What we should realize is that each of us has within us a higher quality of doing certain things, just as others may have higher qualities in another area. We should learn to build on what our qualities are. We should grow, expand and be as good as we can be, but at the same time realize that we can get more done in life by utilizing other people’s qualities to maximize our own abilities; on a job, in a classroom, in our family and in the world as a whole.

Quality is different than perfection. Quality is: essential characteristics, degree of merit or excellence per Webster. In our search for Personal Growth, there is nothing wrong with trying to achieve essential characteristics to perform better at something which needs improvement or to strive for excellence. It indicates that one has the personal ingredients within themselves to strive for and obtain something of value, something they love and want to do. One thing for sure, hard work and pursuing excellence is something that will take you one step further in your life and your pursuit of Personal Growth; Perfection should not be a priority.