Bad News: You’re Not Perfect. But That’s Also the Good News

I’m going to take a shot in the dark and assume that there’s something that you’ve been trying to accomplish but you haven’t done it yet. Or perhaps there’s something you want to get over but it’s still bugging you. Or perhaps there’s something you’re still struggling to understand.

If you hang on for a bit and don’t try to escape the feeling of unaccomplishment, what you might find is a sense of shame or frustration.

I should’ve arrived by now, figured it out yesterday and been done with that years ago. The fact that you have not succeeded implies that you are flawed. That’s the judgement we levy at ourselves, or maybe other people.

But what’s the implication of being flawed? You see, we never quite investigate that bit. Because the bad news is, you’re not perfect.

There’s a reason you go to Kindergarten. It’s because you lack knowledge. There’s a reason you fall off the skateboard. It’s because you lack balance. There’s a reason you struggle in relationships. It’s because you don’t understand how your partner is your mirror.

We are not born knowing everything. Our knowledge base is incomplete, our perspective is too shallow and our ability is unrefined. Therefore, we have to learn.

But let’s consider those who believe they’re perfect, because the only thing they’ve done is create a perfect hell for themselves.

Light Yagami from Death Note is a good example of someone who believes that he is perfect, specifically morally perfect. He’s so perfect that he literally decides who lives and who dies. If he writes your name in the death note, you die. If he doesn’t, you live.

What Light didn’t understand was his own arrogance and by not understanding that, how can he be morally perfect? Simple. He’s not.

In the anime, he gets so drunk with pride in being able to figure people out and manipulate them into what he wants. But because he’s not perfect, he eventually gets exposed and dies right in front of the guy who was more morally virtuous and maybe 1 IQ point smarter, but was far more socially inept.

Again, nobody’s perfect.

Now let’s consider those who are desperate to be perfect. Nina, from the movie Black Swan. The ballerina wanted to be perfect so badly that her self-esteem went into the toilet, experienced derealisation and depersonalisation, attacked her mother, and wounded herself just so she could perform the role of black swan perfectly.

To be fair, she played the black swan very well but she had already made a mistake and fallen when in the role of white swan.

But again, nobody’s perfect.

If she could’ve played the lead of Swan Lake without losing her mind and potentially her life, I think that would’ve been more favorable. But that’s what the desire to be perfect does to a human being.

You are going against nature, so nature will go against you. Ultimately, she didn’t really trust herself. Thus, she had to control herself so tightly she ran her mental and physical health into the ground.

Light and Nina represent the two problems with perfection. Light believes he is already perfect, and thus has an inflated ego.

Nina believes she has to become perfect in the eyes of others in order to legitimise her self-worth. She has a deflated ego and needs others’ approval.

Light did not heed Ryuk’s warnings. If a death god tells you, “if you use this book to kill people, your name will eventually end up being written in the book”, why would you even start? Because you think you’re perfect, so who cares what others think?

If Nina doesn’t get the role of prima ballerina, she could still excel in another role. But she doesn’t want it because her self-esteem is too fragile. She needs the biggest role in order to feel like she matters, even if she is objectively not the best fit.

What they both believe is that if they are not perfect, they are worthless, and it becomes a situation of life and death for both.

The bad news is, you’re not perfect. You will have to ask for help. The good news is, you’re not perfect. You will not have to do it alone.

Here’s what trips up a lot of people. People think that if they ask for help, then that means they’re weak. The irony, of course, is the fact that it is because you don’t admit that you lack information or skills that telegraph to everyone that you’re weak.

We already see you struggling, so we already know you’re not perfect.

I’ll be fair. There are those who ask for help for everything because they don’t trust themselves to do anything. Perfectionists fear being those kinds of people because those people never do anything, and so they fail by default. Perfectionists hate failure.

But that’s kind of interesting. If success is more assured if you ask for help or rely on others, then why would perfectionists not do it? Because they were let down in the past.

No one starts out as a perfectionist. You become it as a matter of survival. If people couldn’t look out for you, or people shamed you for not knowing how to do something, you start to look out for yourself.

As painful as those things are, if you assume that no one can help you but you, that is how you destroy yourself and potentially everything you built. What would make better sense is when you see someone you respect, seek their advice or confide in them. Tell them what you’re going through.

When you admit to someone you respect that you don’t know something or struggle to do something, what you’re showing is that you respect yourself enough to get the information you need to succeed and to share your strengths and weaknesses with another human being.

And lastly, if they judge you for it, that would be lame of them. And you know it! You would immediately say to yourself, doesn’t everyone need help? Shouldn’t I be allowed to share what I’m going through, whether it’s good or bad?

Yes, I couldn’t agree more, so why not just take your own advice? Just remember, there’s a difference between talking to people who will criticise you and those who are willing to help you.

You will find helpful people if you yourself are a helpful person. That’s the catch.

Want the video version? It’s here.