Straight Lines, Pretty Paper, and My Struggle To Find Balance...
I have had two things on my mind today, completely unrelated. Now the problem arises, do I make them two separate posts or do I find a creative way to segway from one to the other?
This morning I helped my mom wrap Christmas presents for her Sunday school class. I love wrapping presents, mostly because I love making things beautiful. When we had finished I sat back in my chair to survey our handiwork. As I looked things kept jumping out at me. Was it the pretty paper? Was it the tidy wrapping job we did? No, a resounding no. Instead what I saw was the places where the pattern on the paper didn't quite match at the seam. I saw places where the tape was placed on crooked, I saw uneven seams, folded or torn paper. I saw imperfection. I could not look beyond the "mistakes" that I had made and see the big picture, see how excited the children would be to receive presents.
Unfortunately this is a pattern that seems to be establishing itself in my life and my personality. I have mentioned before that I have perfectionistic tendancies. Even as I write this I am struggling... seething really, because this is the second time I've written this post, the first was lost in some cyper-blip that served only to try my patience and give an excellent example of my problem. Am I concerned about the time that I invested in writing (and re-writing) this? No. The thing that drives me crazy is that I know I will not be able to reproduce the exact wording that I had before... flawed reproductions... a bane to the existence of perfectionists everywhere
What I want to know is how does one go from being a carefree, self confident child to a (gasp!) adult who sees her worth as dependent on straight lines, perfect seams, nice handwriting, matching colors, flawless powerpoint and so many other eternally insignificant things? Where in the process of life did I begin to think that these things mattered so much? I know that the bible charges us to "be perfect therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt. 5:48), but somehow I don't really think that that kind of perfection is what Matthew was trying to instill in us.
It is deceptively simple for me, as I sit here thinking and writing, to say that those things don't matter. But still that is only writing and thinking, when the rubber hits the road and I am called upon to do any of those little tasks the perfectionist in me will promptly rear its ugly head. However, there is a little fear there as well, fear of moving so far to the left that I would say that these things don't matter at all and I would let them all fall by the wayside. We are to be striving for excellence in all that we do, are we not? Especially where it concerns serving the Lord or His people. Here the question remains, where do we draw that tenuous line between unhealthy perfectionism that obsesses over the details and striving for excellence that will show our best before the Lord?
I fear that this is something that I will struggle with all of my life.. perfection, excellence, pride, humility, apathy... where is the balance, how do you achieve it, how do you know you are there, and how could you possibly stay there?
This morning I helped my mom wrap Christmas presents for her Sunday school class. I love wrapping presents, mostly because I love making things beautiful. When we had finished I sat back in my chair to survey our handiwork. As I looked things kept jumping out at me. Was it the pretty paper? Was it the tidy wrapping job we did? No, a resounding no. Instead what I saw was the places where the pattern on the paper didn't quite match at the seam. I saw places where the tape was placed on crooked, I saw uneven seams, folded or torn paper. I saw imperfection. I could not look beyond the "mistakes" that I had made and see the big picture, see how excited the children would be to receive presents.
Unfortunately this is a pattern that seems to be establishing itself in my life and my personality. I have mentioned before that I have perfectionistic tendancies. Even as I write this I am struggling... seething really, because this is the second time I've written this post, the first was lost in some cyper-blip that served only to try my patience and give an excellent example of my problem. Am I concerned about the time that I invested in writing (and re-writing) this? No. The thing that drives me crazy is that I know I will not be able to reproduce the exact wording that I had before... flawed reproductions... a bane to the existence of perfectionists everywhere
What I want to know is how does one go from being a carefree, self confident child to a (gasp!) adult who sees her worth as dependent on straight lines, perfect seams, nice handwriting, matching colors, flawless powerpoint and so many other eternally insignificant things? Where in the process of life did I begin to think that these things mattered so much? I know that the bible charges us to "be perfect therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt. 5:48), but somehow I don't really think that that kind of perfection is what Matthew was trying to instill in us.
It is deceptively simple for me, as I sit here thinking and writing, to say that those things don't matter. But still that is only writing and thinking, when the rubber hits the road and I am called upon to do any of those little tasks the perfectionist in me will promptly rear its ugly head. However, there is a little fear there as well, fear of moving so far to the left that I would say that these things don't matter at all and I would let them all fall by the wayside. We are to be striving for excellence in all that we do, are we not? Especially where it concerns serving the Lord or His people. Here the question remains, where do we draw that tenuous line between unhealthy perfectionism that obsesses over the details and striving for excellence that will show our best before the Lord?
I fear that this is something that I will struggle with all of my life.. perfection, excellence, pride, humility, apathy... where is the balance, how do you achieve it, how do you know you are there, and how could you possibly stay there?
posted by Alison at 11:30 PM
1 Comments:
Most excellent post Alison. Almost Perfect, but there were a few spelling mistakes (just kidding, but I bet you were starting to scan the page!).
As casual as I am sometimes, I'd also consider myself a perfectionist in many situations. I'm right with ya on PowerPoint, I use it almost every Sunday night and I hate it when it doesn't work perfectly. And when I preach, I'm always thinking of what didn't go perfectly instead of all the positives.
I guess the only mindset that has helped me is this. I try to be a perfectionist in preparation, and laid back in presentation. I really have to make a decision to change from one mindset to another.
I think this tactic is actually working. The only problem now is that when the presentation mode is over I go right back to being a perfectionist. I gotta find a third mindset for 'post-presentation.'
But sadly, now, it's gonna have to start with the letter P.
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