Perils of Perfection
“And if you missed a day, there was always the next,
and if you missed a year, it didn’t matter,
the hills weren’t going anywhere,
the thyme and rosemary kept coming back,
the sun kept rising, the bushes kept bearing fruit”
- Louise Glück
A high school student is elated to find out she’s made the volleyball team. She calls Mom, Dad is proud, they celebrate, she’s happy. Then, a couple of days pass and… now what? She’s on the team, but her happiness no longer lies in that, she has to play. Now she plays sometimes, but she has to start. She’s a starter, but now they have to win. They win a championship, and now she has to apply for college, at which she won’t be playing volleyball. This trend could go on forever.
Must happiness be so elusive?
Expand this concept to countless other areas of our lives, and you find the same kind of pavement chasing at work. There must be some explanation as to why, across all levels of socioeconomic status, such a large percentage of us feel so unsatisfied.
I think a lot of this push and pull may be rooted in our “more is better” cultural values. But, this isn’t to say that the marketable perspective is inherently worse, or less conducive to happiness, as there is indeed wisdom and value to be found in consistently working hard toward something. Especially when there’s a clear and meaningful purpose. Yet, on the other end, contentment is often vilified, or confused with apathy. There is wisdom in finding contentment and learning to enjoy my life as it is, but complacency could hold me back if I let it.
So, what do I do? Should I never be satisfied and set out to achieve as much as possible? Or should I just be thankful for what I have and float around like this forever? It’s confusing.
Fortunately, there may be a way to settle this internal conflict, and it’s beautifully simple; it isn’t too far removed from either end of the spectrum, as one doesn’t have to commit to days of sleepless hustle or lifeless complacency. It involves building a relationship with the process.
If something like writing a book was a goal of mine, instead of placing my happiness in the completion of my book, what if I place it in the process of writing the book– the drafting, the planning, the blocking, the research, the stress, the rewrites, all of it. Or, let’s say I wanted to play in the NBA. What if I valued the training, the recovery, the nutrition, or the film study just as much as actually being drafted. When I am succeeding simply by doing, how then is it possible to fail? If I don’t get published? That’s almost entirely out of my control. Would it not be absurd to place my happiness in something like that? Allowing things outside of my control (publishers, bosses, coaches, anyone) to determine my self-worth and sense of achievement is a losing game.
Happiness is elusive so long as it exists as an outcome because, as soon as a moment of achievement passes, my happiness becomes past tense. Then, I have to accomplish another, and another, and another; I find myself in constant pursuit of a moment.
Exhausting.
So yes, hustle. Set lofty goals and approach them with hardened discipline, but at the same time, be passive, find contentment, and learn to value your environment for what it is. These things aren’t mutually exclusive. You don’t have to choose one or the other.
Think of achievement as the cherry on top. You’ll have your ice cream either way, but the cherry is always nice.
{Keeping this in mind, give the poem at the top another read. It’s a favorite of mine.}
