The Writing Life
One of my favorite musicians is a perfectionist. I know this because, in my sporadic attempts to be a dedicated fan, I spent some time reading this musician’s comments about one of his albums. He described himself as a perfectionist musician, then stated his work was never finished, only abandoned.
[Read more…] about Of Perfectionists and Abandoning Projects
The problem with perfectionists, albeit not the only one (This line is becoming a theme.), is that they’re demanding. They demand a lot from themselves. They sometimes demand a lot from others. They demand, demand, demand.
The problem with perfectionists, but by no means not the only one (Yes, I’m repeating a line from one of my other posts about perfectionism.), is that they become fixated upon their failures. Those failures may be real. They may be imagined. They may be small, such as forgetting to send an email or to make a phone call. They may be large, such as not caring for shipping arrangements for an upcoming trade show or not paying a bill on time. It doesn’t matter. In the mind of a perfectionist, a small failure is or becomes equal with a large failure.
As a perfectionist, it’s easy for me to feel like a failure. Entertaining a single failure in my mind increases the likelihood that I will remember other failures and shortcomings and that I will obsess about them. Suddenly, I’m not a mere failure. I’m an abysmal one.
In a perfect world, every poem I write would be amazing and worthy of being published. The world is not perfect, and very few of my poems are amazing. In fact, for every one, good poem I write, I probably write between seven and ten duds.
If I’ve learned anything about falling and failure, it’s that I have to get up. I can’t stay on my knees. I can’t cling to the crumpled remnants of failed poems. I can’t hoard unsuccessful blog posts.