One of my most vivid memories from my childhood is receiving a gift from my uncle. It was a brand-new bike and a pink donut-shaped water bottle. I was about six at the time. I had come top in my class that year with perfect grades, a feat he thought deserved to be celebrated. How thoughtful of him.
I don’t remember how long it took me to learn to ride that bike. What I do remember is one of the many lessons that gift taught me: That I had to be “perfect” to be appreciated.
As someone from a culture where your birth order plays a huge role in determining your rights and privileges, being sandwiched between a first daughter and a first son meant I often had to settle for leftover privileges. “Let your sister pick first; she’s the eldest” and “Why don’t you let your brother have it? He’s the youngest” are statements I heard quite frequently. Settling was part of my identity.
That bike changed my fortune.
For the first time in my little world, I was the first to get something all my siblings wanted. And it came as a result of perfection i.e. getting perfect grades.
Although I didn't know it then, that marked the beginning of my struggle with perfectionism.
My first online writing experience
For many, many years after my big gift, I held the notion that being perfect was the only way to get noticed. “Show up perfectly or don’t show up at all” was my mantra. And boy, did I get the badges to reinforce my strive for perfection.
When I was eight, I won an award for being the best-behaved pupil in my school. My desire to be perfect had smothered the playful, adventurous attributes that make for a fulfilling childhood. And I was being celebrated for that. A decade after that, I was awarded 'Employee of the Month' at work, an award I believed I earned as a result of doing all the “right” things.
These are just some of the achievements that helped fuel my desire for perfection.
So you can imagine the sheer terror I felt when I was required to write (a skill I believed I sucked at) in public.
It was 2021. I was enrolled in a Bootcamp and had to publish an article on Medium as part of the course requirements. Writing that article was harder than I ever imagined. Not because I didn't know what to write but because I knew I would have to share my "imperfect" writing in public. My inner critic was working on overdrive that day; scrutinizing every word choice, constantly reminding me how much I sucked at this writing thing. And when it came to publishing, that was even harder.
I don't recall feeling even a tinge of excitement after hitting that publish button. Maybe there was, but it was too insignificant to stick to my memory. What I remember quite vividly, is desperately wanting to crawl under a carpet and hide for a long while. I had a million and one questions running through my mind, the most prominent being, "What if people read this and think I'm stupid?"
No one did.
Or maybe they did. I don't know. They were polite enough not to mention it, or anything else for that matter. Did their silence mean my writing wasn't worth their time?
The following week, I was required to go through the same routine again. You would think the second attempt would be easier. It wasn't. I was so terrified of getting close to the publish button for the second time, you would think it was covered with thorns. I swore to stop writing online immediately after the Bootcamp was over.
That wasn't to be, as something remarkable happened after my first few articles.
The comment that gave me the courage to keep showing up
Each time I published an article, I would lurk around the comments section, waiting for that one comment that says, "You suck at this writing thing. Please do us all a favor and stick to your day job." At least that would validate my fears. I would have a damn good excuse to hang up my writing gloves and call it a day.
I didn't get that. Rather, this was what I got:
Saying my article was "okay" would have been more than enough praise for me. But this person took the compliment a million steps further. It just blew my mind to know that my "crappy" article was valuable to someone.
I started to question the point of my quest for perfection.
The problem with striving for perfection
The quest for perfection is a never-ending race. As you progress toward being perfect, so does your idea of perfection. So, shouldn’t we rather be focusing on doing the best we can with what we have at any given point in time? And as we make mistakes and learn from them, the quality of our personal best improves.
My article was nothing close to my idea of perfection but someone found it immensely valuable. To that person, it was probably the perfect solution to their need at that point. A need I never would have fulfilled if I sat theorizing about the perfect article instead of publishing what I could at the time.
In the book, Art and Fear, David Bayles and Ted Orland share a story that effectively captures the danger of perfection:
A ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. Those on the left side of the studio would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, while those on the right, solely on quality. On the final day of class, he would bring his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the " quantity" group: An "A" for fifty pounds of pot, a "B" for forty pounds, and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, had to produce only one pot, but it had to be perfect to get an "A".
When grading time came, a surprising fact emerged: the highest quality work came from the " quantity" group. It seemed that while the quantity group was busy creating piles of crappy work and learning from their mistakes, the "quality" group sat theorizing about perfection. In the end, all they had to show for their effort was some grandiose theory and a pile of dead clay.
Since publishing my first article, I have churned out over 50 more and I'm still nowhere close to being a perfect writer.
Through writing imperfectly online, I am able to discover and fix gaps in my knowledge, connect with like-minded people, and unlock numerous opportunities. If I can gain all of this while providing value to others, why then should I give a hoot about being perfect?
My writing style is still far from perfect. In fact, I don't think it'll ever be. But knowing that someone out there can find value in my writing, as imperfect as it is, gives me the courage to keep showing up imperfectly.
Special thanks to Chris Coffman, James Tippins, Hari Nair, and Eoghan Sheehy for their valuable feedback on the initial draft of this piece.
I loved this essay, Chinwe. I've struggled with perfection my whole life, and your musings on coming to terms with imperfection struck a chord with me.
This sentence stopped me in my tracks: "My desire to be perfect had smothered the playful, adventurous attributes that make for a fulfilling childhood." The incentives in our education system sometimes make me question whether we're teaching children the right lessons.
Congratulations on overcoming your fear of perfection and being so prolific as a writer. It sounds like you've grown immensely both personally and professionally.
Amazing work :)
Chinwe, I thought this essay was imperfectly perfect! Or better said, a great piece. Loved the story about your bicycle, it's funny to look back and see how the seeds of perfectionism were planted to early in our life. I related to so much of your story. Perfectionism is my weakness too and in school, it's rewarded!
"To that person, it was probably the perfect solution to their need at that point. A need I never would have fulfilled if I sat theorizing about the perfect article instead of publishing what I could at the time." This part really resonated! I hit publish so many times on pieces I don't have confidence about, but then it's so rewarding to see that the ideas or something in the essay found the right person at the right time. Great essay!