The Flaw in Perfectionism

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. says this about perfectionism:

"A perfectionist sees life as if it were one of those little pictures that used to appear in the newpapers over the caption "What's wrong with this picture?" If you looked at the picture carefully you would see that the table only had three legs or the house had no door. I remember the "Aha!" that these pictures evoked in me as a child. I wonder now why anyone would want to take such satisfaction in [dwelling on] what is missing, what is wrong, what is "broken."

The pursuit of perfection has become a major addiction of our time. Fortunately, perfectionism is learned. No one is born a perfectionist, which is why it is possible to recover. I am a recovering perfectionist. Before I began recovering, I experienced that I and everyone else was always falling short, that who we were and what we did was never quite good enough. I sat in judgment on life itself. Perfectionism is the belief that life is broken."