Up: [[Compulsion]] Created: 2025-07-13 The paradox of perfection is that you are already perfect *and* you will never, ever be perfect. The “you are perfect” part is touted on greeting cards, occasionally by a parent or friend, often by therapists, and almost always in children’s books. > [!Orbit] Dr. Seuss in *Oh, the Places You’ll Go!* > Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is you’er than you. This is the premise that you aren’t just one in a billion, you are the one and only. Perfect means whole and complete. Because you are uniquely you, and maybe because of the [[Daimon]] that helps identify your unique purpose in the world, you cannot be anything other than perfect. At the same time, we all know that we can’t ever be perfect; that perfection *belongs to the gods* as Jung was fond of saying. Every perfectionist has heard the quotes touted on posters, often by therapists, and always by smug non-perfectionists: - Perfect is the enemy of the good. - Strive for progress, not perfection. - Done is better than perfect. You are perfect and you can never be perfect. In *The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control*, Katherine Morgan Schafler tells us that adaptive perfectionists believe both parts of the sentence are true, while maladaptive perfectionists believe both parts are false. (For a reminder of the distinction between the two states, see [[Perfectionism]].) Since all perfectionists experience both adaptive and maladaptive times, I doubt there’s a perfectionist anywhere who hasn’t, some or most of the time, felt they were more broken than whole. On this point, Schafler throws down the gauntlet: > [!Orbit] Katherine Morgan Schafler in *The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control* > With the same ease that you so willingly accept the veracity of “experts” who are constantly telling you that you’re fucked up in some way, entertain the idea that you’re not. > What if there’s not one thing — not even *half* a thing — that you need to add to yourself before you can live in the way you want to live? What if all you need is enough openness to see yourself from a different perspective? (p.37) [[Perfectionism Can Be a Gift]]