Does this description of your child (or yourself) sound familiar?
He will stop writing a note to a friend and shred it into confetti because a letter E came out backward, and some of his afternoons painting watercolors with our downstairs neighbor have ended in tears, as when the yellow rays of a sunflower were slightly out of proportion to the brown eye in the center. After a similar event in art class last week, he wrote out a note to himself that read: “Step 1: Do your best! Step 2: Try again.”
The above passage is from “Burnt Offerings,” a delightful column by Pete Wells, who muses on perfectionism in the kitchen and what our children can teach us:
“I hate mistakes when I’m cooking, although I’ve certainly made enough of them. I am forever oversalting the oatmeal or scorching the butter or flipping pancakes into unnatural postures, and each time I want to kick the stove and walk away. The only thing stopping me is my 5-year-old.”
For whatever reason, intensity and perfectionism seem to go hand in hand much of the time. At our most intense, we strive for an often impossible state or result, and the “urge to perfect” is itself an intense experience.
When we simultaneously embrace and manage perfectionistic tendencies, we can better enjoy the intense moment and the intensity in ourselves.
What or who helps you to manage perfectionism?
