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So many of us aspire to achieving perfection in much of our lives these days. I believe this aspiration contributes significantly to poor mental health, and today is the 'perfect' day to address this issue as it is World Mental Health Day. It is the best day to address this issue.
Even if we don’t do it consciously, as a society in the western world we strive to achieve this quality. It underlies all our endeavours and is an implied message that we pass on from generation to generation. That is why many of our young people feel a need to perform in particular ways, where even an A grade is not enough for some.
So what is perfection?
The dictionary describes it as ‘the state or quality of being perfect’.
And what is ‘perfect’?
‘Perfect’ is defined as ‘to make (something) completely free from faults or defects; make as good as possible’.
Yet many of us interpret it not as ‘making something as good as possible for that individual’ but better than anything that any human can achieve. Or they aspire to someone else’s perception of ideal. So as an example, when young women or adolescents believe they should look a certain way or should be a certain size, they are aspiring usually to someone else’s opinion of what they should look like.
This is unreasonable.
It’s unreasonable because that understanding of ‘perfect’ is unreal.
Continuing with this example, humans are made to be different. That is actually the wonder of a human creature (and for that matter, any other creature). We are meant to be a different size, colour, shape, texture etc from our neighbour or our peer. So where we aspire to have our hair looking the same as other women or men, or where we view a brown person as less than ourselves, or when we believe that all women should be a size 0 with an hourglass figure because that is the perfect style, colour or shape, we not only go against the natural order of things, but also set ourselves up to fail.
True perfection is not possible because it is only a concept, and in fact a man-made concept. We can never achieve it in real terms. The whole of the universe, everything within it, has its own rhythm, its own pattern, its own state. Everything is unique, no matter how much we try to mould it to our idea of how it should be.
Thinking that we can reach a state of perfection in anything not only leaves us open to failure but can also paralyse us so that we don’t achieve anything. It inspires a fear within us, it can isolate us, it can lower our mood when we feel these things constantly.
Given that we are seeing more and more mental health issues arising, especially in young people, is it not time to abandon this concept?
Given that we are as a society, experiencing greater levels of low mood, suicidal ideation, self-harm, loneliness, anxiety etc, is it not time we substitute ‘perfection’ with ‘good enough’?
In the field of psychology, Donald Winnicott first coined the phrase ‘good enough’ in the context of parenting. In the early 1950s he wrote that good enough parenting was better than perfect parenting. He showed that a child who receives ‘perfect parenting’, i.e. where the parent figure responds to every little need of the infant, the child is actually in a worst position than a ‘good enough parent’. This is because ‘perfect parenting’ leads to a child being spoilt and having unrealistic expectations, which in the real world will never be met. On the other hand, ‘good enough’ parenting leads to realistic expectations from the child, they get used to disappointments as well as getting needs met, and thus have a more realistic expectation of the world at large.
So on World Mental Health Day, when we get to focus our attentions on mental health (although we need to be thinking about it every day), I ask you …. Isn’t it time to boycott the word and the concept of ‘perfection’ and replace it instead with ‘good enough’?
We can all be a good enough shape, size, colour. We can all achieve a good enough grade, find good enough friends, access good enough services. The world can be good enough. That leaves space for us to enjoy what we do have, at the level we have it and then if we get more than we expect, it is always a lovely bonus.
Isn’t that a better place to live within?
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