Not less than a week ago, I was charged on the count of being a perfectionist.
While educating a couple of newbies on how to make use of the Hive blockchain in publishing their content, a friend of mine said out loud
Sam, you are such a perfectionist. 😆
At first thought, I was like is it a bad thing or an insult, but the way she made use of her words made it close to impossible to upset or angry. With that subtle meek and lovely voice of hers, tell me how could one get upset? If her words were meant to upset me, surely she would have used a different tone. But Nah, she didn't.
Regardless, I still felt the word PERFECTIONIST was probably not a nice way to describe me or my affairs. So I went ahead to google the word to gain a deeper meaning behind the concept of word.
The Oxford Dictionary describes the word as
a person who refuses to accept any standard short of perfection
Oh yeah, that's right. A person who refuses to accept anything less or below standard. So baby girl, charge me on all counts of perfection cause I admit it and accept all charges assigned to a perfectionist cause all my life I've always built myself on standards and nothing less than that.
Growing Up
Growing up, I've always done my best to ensure I made my folks proud by bagging the grades, the A's, B's, and sometimes C's when it came to subjects I had no interest in. I would say this could probably be the reason why I even push myself hard in being a better chess player right from secondary school. My school has always been competitive for me and the remaining students. Everybody strives hard daily just to be a better version of themselves, even the instructors and teachers motivating with their words to ensure their students are the best and make them proud. Most times, it was quite demanding and I tell you, giving your best takes more from you than you know.
An ideology that governs chess and will still govern it in centuries to come is the fact that no matter what you perceive the game to be, it will always demand the best from you. It could be the best in your attitude, appearance, moves, or even composure while playing but the end product is it requires something. And this is not too far from being a person who requires nothing less than perfection. Now you see what makes me this way.
Honestly speaking, we humans are also guilty of being perfectionists in one way or another. We crave the perfect job, the perfect partner, probably smart, confident, and beautiful for the guys and for the ladies probably, tall, dark and handsome.
It could even be the perfect success story, but in the nutshell, we all want perfection in whatever form it may come.
So tell me how do we justify that?
In the end
Here is the funny twist that comes with life, no matter how hard we may try or how good we may be, nobody on planet earth is perfect. Underneath our beauty and talents, there is still an atom of imperfection that comes with being human, but it is left to us to spot them, work on them, and hope we find that special someone who loves us despite our imperfections.
Life comes with its baggage of imperfection and all we could do is live our lives up to the standards we create for ourselves.