Perfection

Today, my coach asked me an interesting question. “Are you happy?” In my normal behavior, I answered with a self-deprecating “well no, but but that’s just my normal state.” It’s a self defense mechanism I’ve had since I was younger. He asked me why, I responded that I probably need a hobby.

The reality is that I have hobbies. I enjoy writing. I play video games. I want to work on more YouTube videos. I enjoy fitness stuff. I have things that I want to do and things I want to accomplish. When I start something, it tends to break down and never get done.

So I began to think about why. In between working, this nagging voice stuck in the back of my head. I could be happy, right? If I just stuck to the things that I want to do? So why don’t finish the things that I start? I will start writing something, or a YouTube video, and will just shut it down unsatisfied after about thirty minutes of working on it. 

It’s because of perfection, or lack thereof more specifically. Short of perfection, I begin to shut down. I beat myself up, clobbering myself with self pity and whatever the hell the midlife equivalent to teenage angst is. After all, if something isn’t absolutely right will I get shot down and beat up by people who will say my writing sucks, my video is stupid, or I just suck at that game.

It all goes back to what I think people will think about me. Why do I care? Well, let’s take a trip back a couple of decades. (Just a couple, I’m not that old.

It’s probably a combination of things. I was a loner in school, pretty much ostracized by just about anyone. In hindsight a couple of people did try to reach out, but I distrusted everyone so much that I put my guards up. My father was completely vacant for most of my life. More than anything, though, it probably comes back to my mother.

I can still remember times when my mother would tell me how I wasn’t good looking, call me fat, and tell me I’d never be ‘attractive’ to someone. I was told how I couldn’t sing well, so why should she come to my concert at school just for the five minutes I am on stage? Why should she come to the art exhibit just to see the thing I made, she saw it when I made in the house. Over and over again, she systematically knocked me down.

My mother passed away three and a half years ago. For the first couple of years, it felt like the most painful thing ever. As time went on, I felt like blinders started coming off. Especially over the last few months, locked in the house from COVID-19, I’ve had more and more time to think about her and my past. I’ve come to realize just how manipulative she was towards me.

I would say hateful, but I can’t. I really do believe my mother loved me. However, I also realize now she saw me as something that was “hers”, a piece of property born to serve her in some ways. She knocked me down so much, told me how bad I was at things, that I couldn’t help but think of myself as a failure. If I’m a failure, then I won’t leave. Then I would always stay at home with her.

Throughout my entire life, whenever I’ve tried to do something creative, I never truly complete it because I always feel like it isn’t “good enough” because I know it isn’t perfect, and my mother reinforced that I wasn’t good enough so it could never be perfect to begin with or even close to good. I’m reminded of  a quote from Star Trek: Voyager.

Borg Queen:
Congratulations.

Seven of Nine:
Regarding?

Borg Queen:
Assimilation is complete.

Seven of Nine:
300,000 individuals have been transformed into drones. Should they be congratulated as well?

Borg Queen:
They should be. They've left behind their trivial, selfish lives, and they've been reborn with a greater purpose. We've delivered them from chaos into order.

Seven of Nine:
Comforting words. Use them next time instead of "Resistance is futile". You may elicit a few volunteers.

The idea of the Borg used to appeal to me because of the idea of being brought into perfection and being accepted by everyone because you are one.  ‘

This evening I skimmed through some old files and photographs. I realized that I had so many half-done stories, articles, blog posts, photo projects, etc. because none of them lived up to my perfecting standards. After all, they can’t be good, I did them.

How do you get better at something? You do it a lot. You do it over and over and over again until you’re really good at it. If you don’t keep trying, you never improve. The problem is I have programmed myself to stop trying after I’ve failed the first time, instead of continuing to push.

The one exception to this rule has been fitness, to some extent. While I tried to do the fitness thing for years off and on, I never had success until I worked with Coach Andrew beginning in 2015. He was probably one of the first truly supportive people in my life in regards to my outside-of-work activities. He pushed me, he encouraged me, and he told me that even if I fell, I could always get back up and try again. 

Still, when it comes to things like this blog, or videos, or gaming, I still have held myself to impossible standards. I’m constantly fiddling with the blog template, graphics, etc. instead of actually writing posts because I always feel the posts are never good enough. My drafts folder contains 15 different, incomplete postings. 

So what do I do? After all, I know deep down perfection isn’t an attainable or realistic goal. I know that I can’t get everything absolutely right on the first try, and I know things will be better each time.

I’ve done a handful of YouTube videos, but as I look back at them I can see improvements each and every time. Whether it is color, lighting, composition, audio, etc. each one improved upon the prior. If I randomly asked 100 YouTube viewers would I get a bunch of people complaining about random things? Sure, but who cares. Trolls gonna troll, I have to do me.

Similarly, this blog post isn’t the greatest piece of prose ever written. It’s probably a little disjointed and might now flow as well as i hoped. Do I scrap it? I could, or I could realize that my writing will continue to improve if I keep working at it.

For video games, instead of giving up as soon as I die, maybe get back into Fortnite and just keep dying and just die a little later each time. Maybe work on my cities in Cities Skylines more and know each city I build will build my skills instead of just abandoning after twenty minutes of not completing an entire bustling metropolis. 

I told my coach today I felt like I hadn’t had any “wins” in fitness lately. I started going back through some of my old lifting records. We worked on bench together today, and I did a peak of 175x5. The heaviest I benched was 190x2 back in early 2019. I haven’t really worked on bench press at heavy levels since then. So even with over a year away from the lift and nearly three months of COVID lockdown my lift is on par. I’d say that’s a pretty damn good win right there, knowing that soon enough I’ll be breaking that peak weight level and heading back towards getting stronger. 

I closed my iPad several times as I wrote this. Instead of using those breaks as a chance to fail, I used them as an opportunity to clear my mind. To bring my thoughts into focus and come back to what I was writing. I realized that my goal of writing about perfection was one that I needed to do, because it’s the perfect setup for restarting my efforts to bring happiness to my life.

So I’m committing myself to write and post more, to play more games and say committed to them, do more videos and keep working at it, and find more things I am interested in and create more. To fiddle less with the details and get back to doing things that are meaningful to myself.

I’m also committing to my fitness effort because I know while I can not be perfect, every day I can change myself every day to be a little bit better, a little stronger, a little leaner. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes dedication, and it takes sacrifice. It means keeping the diet in line and staying true to what I want to achieve. 

I will always remind myself of why I was called the “Phoenix” by my coach in Connecticut. Because no matter what, I refuse to give up in the end. I might burn to ashes, but I will always rise stronger. Never perfect, but a little better every time.