A Perfectionist’s Outcry

It took me a long time to finally start writing. And even when I did, it was never good enough. One after another, my blogs weren’t perfect. My writings were flawed. I could never see them without judgment. Everything was supposed to be perfect—perfect in a way that the story wasn’t supposed to look tired, tired from the process it endured to finally be published.

I sometimes feel like my blog posts are weary and exhausted. No, not because they are burdened by the weight of the story, but because they had to go through a process where I ripped them apart, judged them, scrutinized them, invalidated them, and maybe even doubted them. I feel bad for them, you know?

Perfectionism is an exhausting state of being. "She does things perfectly" sounds like a good compliment. But worse are the times when I didn’t do things perfectly and the self-sabotage that crept into my head.

I’ve always struggled with wanting to do things the perfect way. But reality is nowhere close. No writing is perfect. I am never happy with what I write because there is an invisible line of “good enough” that the perfectionist genie has drawn in my head. If I don’t cross it, I am a failure.

Oops, not my words. That’s just how it feels.

Putting in a lot of effort to make sure everything is perfect, even for something unimportant, is a killer of time and energy. From the arrangement of bookshelves to the creases on my bedsheet, some things are never quite right to me. And so I strive. I strive like a child determined to make things finally feel right.

It rarely does.

One of the worst ways this perfectionism backfires is in studying. The number of times I’ve avoided studying for something because I knew I couldn’t study it perfectly in the "right" way is huge and terrifying. My brain refuses to accept that “something is better than nothing.” Instead, it insists that nothing is better than being imperfect. It was never about being better than others. It was an unnecessary, toxic quench to finally feel the rush of boasting to myself that I did it right.

When, in reality, there was no "right" or "wrong" in the first place.

It took me a long time to be okay with being different, being flawed, and being imperfect. Now, I don’t try to make my writing perfect because I know it never will be. Now, I don’t wait to cross that invisible line of perfection to feel alright.

I just exist in the flawed version of myself, and I am happy about it. It took me a long time to finally start writing—to write like a writer. Flawed and messy, but mine.