A common question asked by job interviewers goes along the
lines of ‘what’s your biggest weakness?’ I always had a ready-made answer to
this - that I’m a perfectionist. I thought it was a clever reply because I could argue that the positive aspects of it, such as striving to
be a better version of myself, far outweighed the negatives. As a concept though, perfectionism is deeply flawed.
When I was young, I struggled with my appearance. My adolescence
was not an easy time for many reasons, coming so soon after the death of my
brother. Furthermore, I had also gone from being very popular at primary school
to feeling completely out of my depth at secondary school. I was suddenly a
very small fish in a very big pond. I needed braces to fix my wonky teeth. Many of my classmates towered over me and puberty arrived late. I’ve always looked young for my age. Even now I could pass for someone several years younger than I am. During my teenage
years this left me very self-conscious. Girls weren’t interested and my self-confidence suffered as a result.
Negative remarks affected me very personally. Even today, two
decades later, I still remember many of them. (Isn’t it curious that we never
recall the positive ones with such ease?) In reality I looked perfectly normal, but I didn’t see
it that way. What I saw in the mirror was the reflection of someone I didn’t
like. Nowadays it would probably be classed as body dysmorphia and
it caused me to do some crazy things to my face. Some days I struggled so badly
that I was unable to leave the house and had to make an excuse about why.
Many people probably thought I was vain but to me it was
insecurity. Although it may be more common in girls, it's definitely prevalent in boys. I didn’t choose to be that way and nor did I want to be. I’d have
loved not to care about how I looked and how I thought others perceived me. But I couldn’t deal with the fact my face wasn’t symmetrical. My imperfections drove me mad. With age I’ve become
more comfortable in my own skin, but even now I still have days when I hate
what I see staring back at me. I've never liked being in photographs; they're a physical reminder of my flaws. I find video calls disturbing because my face is visible.
The quest for perfection has manifested in different ways
as my life has progressed. Many of these have only become apparent in recent times.
It’s not just my personal life that has been affected, but also my career. I studied journalism at university and worked as a sports reporter for a local
newspaper for three years. It was a job I adored and a time of my life I miss very much. Writing and sport are my two biggest passions, so to have a job that
combined both was a dream come true. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.
I hate failure and believe everybody should always try their best. And while this is in many ways an admirable quality, it
certainly had its drawbacks in journalism. I wanted everything I wrote to reflect the best of my ability. My goal was for people to read my work and be impressed – it didn’t
matter whether it was a back-page lead or a 50-word filler. Not in an arrogant
way, I’d show-off by inserting big words into the text, many of which were
completely superfluous. Everything I composed I re-read several times and tried
to improve. However, in the fast-paced world of journalism, speed is important an attribute
as accuracy and detail.
To a neurotic degree I hated the idea of making mistakes. Part
of my job was to edit the sports section of a weekly newspaper and as such,
what appeared on the pages was solely my responsibility. It was my name on
it and my reputation on the line. After sending the pages off to the printer’s,
I would often drive home obsessing over my work, spiralling into a negative
mindset. Had I misspelled a word on the back-page headline? Would I be sacked if
I’d made a glaring error? Of course, I did make mistakes from time to time,
some of which were embarrassing, but no more than anybody else and nothing that
would cost me my job. The old adage that today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s fish
and chip paper is appropriate here.
The biggest issue with striving for perfection is that it’s almost
impossible to be content with anything less. It’s as true in work as relationships,
which is a subject I will delve into in future posts. If you believe that
because something isn’t perfect, it must be wrong, then true happiness is unattainable - and that’s a very destructive mindset to have. By definition, human beings are flawed creatures. We need only look at
the world around us for proof. Nothing on this planet is perfect and an
acceptance of that is a lesson we all need to learn.
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