Blog: Imperfection is OK

When my parents found out I’d started going to counseling again in October, they were more than a little surprised. My grades were high, I had a lot of friends and I was getting involved in different organizations, so what was the problem? One of my reasons was simply that going to counseling helps me keep tabs on my stress level. As an honors student with two majors and a minor, I’ve even had professors tell me I potentially have too full of a plate. Once, when I visited the registrar’s office to obtain proof of full-time enrollment, the woman looked at my credits and said, “Oh my, you really are full-time, aren’t you?”

My dad and I were discussing this on the drive back to school after Thanksgiving break—over which I wrote two papers—and he said he thinks I get stressed because I’m a perfectionist. It’s true. I recently found out I got a C on a group project and almost threw up. I’ve always taken school almost too seriously, but it has managed to serve me well. I tend to have pleasant relationships with professors, and I’d probably have a 4.0 had I not been saddled with the great trial of taking pre-calc my first year.

It doesn’t take a math major, though, to deduce that perfectionism, plus full load, equals stress. Rather than doing my best, I catch myself hurrying through one task to get to another and then beating myself up when I do poorly. In the end, it comes down to priorities and survival, so much so that the idea of “working ahead” on something seems not only foreign, but luxurious.

Usually, at this point of a blog, I try to weave in some folksy advice or anecdotal wisdom, but the truth of the matter is that I’m just as ready for school to be over as much as everyone else. Earlier, I was remembering the first day of classes this semester, during which one of my professors warned that he had only given one A during the last term. I know now that I probably won’t be receiving that coveted A, not because I haven’t tried, but because I am physically incapable of maintaining that particular professor’s standard of perfection along with that of the professors of my other classes. And as much as it doesn’t feel like it, and as big of a grimace I have on my face as I type these words, I know that imperfection is OK.

It’s OK to not get perfect scores in an introductory course. That’s why it’s called learning. It’s OK to need some help handling stress. That’s healthy. It’s OK to forget to write a blog until you get an e-mail from your editor. Actually wait, no it’s not. I would not recommend that.

The point is that, as long as you work hard, you’ll have room to make mistakes. You might not get an A, but you’ll get something: the satisfaction in knowing that you did the best you could.

Ah, there’s the cheesy take-home message. Now I can sleep easy tonight.