Everything is perfect from far away

Sometimes I purposely go out without my glasses on. It's so nice not to be able to see imperfections. To see beautiful blobs of green instead of ridged lines outlining individual leaves. I still remember one of my friends explaining this sentiment to me back in the seventh grade. At the time, I didn't quite understand what she was getting at, partly because I had perfect vision, but mostly because she was always far wiser than her (our) years.

Though I would have called my seventh grade self a perfectionist, I hesitate to give myself the same title today. It's not that I stopped setting a high bar for myself; the bar is higher than ever. What has changed, though, is my perception and definition of perfection. In school, perfection was pretty easy to achieve with a little bit of work. A little bit of paying attention in class and a lot of studying could earn you perfect or close-to-perfect grades on assignments and exams. But that perfection also provided a short-lived reward, if any. 

In the first few months of my job, I had a meeting with my manager in which we discussed the idea of perfection. You're a perfectionist, aren't you? She practically accused. I was rather taken aback by the tone, only because to me, up until that point, perfectionism had resonated with a positive connotation. We went on to discuss the collaborative nature of our company and how sending over a draft version of a project or deck was more highly valued than something you had spent weeks and weeks creating in the privacy of your own cubicle. Something that you had taken to a point of "perfection." Because here's the thing: At this point in our lives, "perfection" means something different to each person. There is not just "one" perfect. In fact, especially in the context of innovation at a big company (that is not Apple run by Steve Jobs), perfection is more and more the amalgamation of many individual "perfects." 

I'm starting to become more and more of the camp that the word "perfect" is synonymous with "boring." It just seems so sterile. Does anyone really have the "perfect" job or the "perfect" significant other or the "perfect" career path? Maybe on a set in Hollywood, but I don't watch enough movies to validate even that. Most of the beauty in life comes from breaking past the barriers, hurdling the bumps in the road, standing victorious over the imperfections, and being content with reality. Reality is not perfect. 

Growing up, we're always told that nothing is perfect. That nobody is perfect. And to some extent, I think this is one of the most valuable of the "corny things your parents tell you" we can take to heart. But knowing that perfection is impossible should never be an excuse for apathy, for accepting mediocrity, for compromising our goals and beliefs. That's the slippery slope, when we start discounting what matters to us in the "perfect" world. It's in striving to achieve perfection that we attain the sense of accomplishment and victory we have all experienced at some point in our lives.

One evening several months ago, I received an email asking me to put together a presentation for an 8 AM meeting the next morning. Knowing that I had less than twelve hours until my presentation, I was incorrectly operating under the assumption that my deck could not possibly be "that good" anyway. I did a sort of mediocre job, excusing myself based on the time and the "out-of-my-control" circumstances like learning about the presentation so late in the game. Needless to say, my final product was sub par, and that was reflected in a posthumous debrief of my presentation.

Sensory substitution explains how we substitute characteristics from one sensory modality to another. Simply put, this is the idea behind how people who are blind might have a more acute sense of audition. If you can't see, your sense of hearing and touch needs to be really really good. If you think about it evolutionarily, it makes sense. If you can't see a predator approaching, you better be able to hear him.

Each time our life strays off that "perfect" course, it's up to us to simply take off our glasses and ignore it or adapt and substitute with alternate routes. Whatever you choose, just make sure you're attaining whatever it is you feel you deserve, and realize that nobody deserves perfection. In the wise words of T.H. White, if people reach perfection, they vanish you know.