Hello All. Thank you Suleika for another beautiful Sunday Prompt. I loved hearing of the young people about to graduate. And my favorite part was "Life is one coming-of-age arc after another, and as Jon told the students, if you identify your values and hold to them, you can’t go wrong. There is such no thing as failure, only learning. It’s so liberating and so true—to know that you can’t take the wrong path. You can only take your path." Would you be willing to share the talk? The week has been difficult with my brother having another stent put in and while he was there his father in law was taking to the same hospital with a massive heart attack and he was dying so I went to take my brother to say good bye. Yesterday was the funeral of a remarkable 85 year old man. My 88 year old mom fell Thursday and I took her to the ED and spent 8 hours to find out she is ok with 2 staples in her head. Grateful for so much.
Sending hugs and heartfelt condolences, Gina. That's a lot of stress and adrenaline, and I'm guessing not much sleep. It's good to hear your Mom's doing ok. I know emergency rooms well.
I have never been a "Perfectionsist." I used to think it was because I was too "chill" for that.It was not that at all. It was my emotional closeness to my work, be it a drawing, a painting, a lesson ( being a teacher) or in recent times, my writing. It was only at the point where my Developmental Editor Extrodinairre told me to "Banish the Censor." All that I had been holding so close for fear of criticism from others, began to flood out of me. Best advice ever.
My mother describes dashing across campus to hand in her papers at the last minute because she wanted to make sure they were perfect. In fact, she was a very good student and always got excellent grades. She is still very careful and takes her time completing every task. As a result, she is always complaining that she never gets anything done. My mother’s papers were typed on a manual typewriter over sixty years ago when it was much harder to correct a mistake or change something. Now we have Spell Check, Grammarly, and Chat GBT that can recognize errors so the need for perfection is not as present. Still, it would not surprise me if my mother were to attend college in 2025 she would not be one of last to turn in her work.
I on the other hand like to do everything quickly and efficiently. Throughout school I was always one of the first to turn in my exams and learned that my first instincts were often correct. Nevertheless, speediness is not always good. I might accomplish a lot, but there may be some mistakes. In the last few years I have found a happy medium. I am still efficient, but I review my work and check for errors before I press send or submit I recognize that I do not have to respond to every email immediately. I can take the time to think about the best (for the moment answer).
I am hoping to retire in the next few years and I know very few people who absolutely love their jobs and think it is perfect. My career and my life have led me on a series of twists and turns that I never could have predicted. Each step would not have happened without the previous one. Every mistake and every wrong move teaches us a lesson that will bolster us in the next place. Whenever I meet a new graduate I tell them their first job does not have to be their last job and gaining experience anywhere is invaluable. I suggest trying to find a job that meets at least two out of three criteria: it is interesting, the location is easy to get to so you do not spend hours commuting, and the salary is reasonable. At least in my field it seems impossible to find all three.
It is very rare to be able to have it all and I think we have different seasons in our lives. Our focus changes with the seasons. There are times when we do not have too many commitments and can experiment, times when we want to make money, times when we are raising children, times when our health is not good, and times when we are retired and have more leisure With any luck we can continue to pursue our creative interests with varying degrees of time allotments.
Your comment resonates so much with me. I am a few years from retirement as well and I have had many jobs over the 40+ years I’ve been working. My boss just celebrated 40 years with our employer. This made me think about all the paths my career has taken in that same time. There were jobs that were extremely stressful, so much so that I had to find other positions. But I wouldn’t change those experiences because I learned so much from them, I wouldn’t have my current wonderful position that I hope will be my last (full time in my career anyway).
Suleika, you nailed it when you said "There is no there there". I am not at the beginning of my career, I am looking back now. No matter the path taken, there will be joys and sorrows and growth.
SInce my cancer diagnosis I have been getting my affairs in order. And that includes at least a thousand old photos to be digitized. Every step of the process healed me. The sorting and organizing into eras took quite a long time. I have now scanned all the photos from my musical era, and my career change era, and my single mom era. I am 20 years into my second marriage and when I look back, I see the growth. I see the rewards gained from the painful life choices.
I am a stepmom married to an engineer (a normie haha) and my stepson has that brain for numbers and music. When he graduated college with the engineering degree, he wanted to take time off to tour with his band. He had an ally in his stepmom. There are many paths for people with multiple passions.
I've found getting my affairs in order to be cathartic. It stirs up many memories mainly of good times but also of people and places that I love, sights, sounds and smells I treasure. I still have to tackle all my work in terms of a filing system so that it's more logical and organised. But I'm also accepting I may not get this done. All the best with your cancer treatment and may you continue to live well.
Oh the glorious young folk. Gratitude and empathy for them. Identify your values yes. So many paths and identities in a lifetime. I found a vital artery to swim down at 55. Write, write, express and connect. Who knows what’s next? Whatever it is, it won’t be perfect as perfection requires control and with cancer (with life) there is none. Surrender to the slip ups.
A visit from you two must have felt potent to the young folk - particularly in this politically provocative time.
In solidarity from London and my lovely lungs to all across the pond.
When I was a teenager, I used to wear a button badge that said, "Nobody is perfect, but who wants to be a nobody?" I had learned early on that I was never going to be perfect which is often a matter of competing and comparing ourselves with others. Having 5 sisters made this plain. Instead I decided to complement and extend the brilliance of others - acknowledging how others supported me to be "good enough" most of the time!
I was a teen in the Eighties and there was a button badge for everything! Especially around politics. We wore them on our school uniforms as a form of protest. Outwith school we stuck them on hats.
First of all, I've never found a better cookie. I've gone into gourmet groceries and found lots of other fancy smancy cookies but never a more perfect specimen. Perfectionism...I struggle with it...a lot. You wouldn't believe what I've done to achieve it...things that aren't even good for me. Becoming disabled due to medical issues has humbled me. I can't do what I can't do. Curses! Foiled again! It's helped me to let go of a lot of that. Right now I'm trying to learn how to paint "looser," rather than my usual realism style. If I want to have a photograph of something I should just go out and take a photo with my camera instead of painting for hours and hours to achieve the same thing. I see the person within the looser strokes. I want others to see me in mine.
Raised in the 60's and 70's in a somewhat laissez faire parenting style, I was not encumbered with the idea of perfectionism. The four kids were allowed to pursue what interested us, within reason of course. I become a decent all-rounder, - a decent athlete, a decent artist/crafter/sewer, and a good student. There was plenty of time to just hang out with friends, riding our bikes, listening to our music. I think later in life, a lot of my generation became more caught up in perfectionistic tendencies. The culture changed, our interests, and those of our kids, often became more siloed, - in the pursuit of doing "it" perfectly. Time becomes a commodity. Being a good all-rounder is not good enough anymore, and I think we end up losing a lot in striving for perfectionism.
I am going off the prompt-- to "How do I find my path? Am I going to get it right? They were all feeling the pressure to make the perfect plan that would get them to where they’re supposed to go".
For many decades, I have counseled students, of different levels, and adults of different ages contemplating what to study and career changes. So many roadblocks to the door that may eventually open where they are back to the answer someone shared long ago-"Think back to what you dreamed of before someone told you that you needed to work for a living- therein is the answer." And it usually is in one way or the other.
Oftentimes, I share stories of those who have made the choice. One such was a high school student who wanted to work somewhere in the music business. She had very strong verbal skills and hated math. Her essay was about the transition to the world of all dark clothes ripped tights and Doc's.
I had a friend whose sister was in the PR business booking concerts-- I mentioned this girl who became an intern--she continued working through college and years after until she and a friend opened their own firm- where I have connected other students with similar interests. Now it need not be in the arts---but encourage dreams-- I don't know if tha is perfection- with twists and turns--another wanted to combine neurology and engineering- neural-engineering....right is as as amorphous as perfection---or the imagined quest for that hard habit to break into the magic of unknown.
Thank you, Suleika (you're in my thoughts and prayers). Thank you for your prompt, Hrishikesh. I was nodding along with several thoughts today.
Early in life, I sought the missing 1% from my 99% score but then spectacularly failed my exams for university - blame it on the band and music I was making. It was a deafening, quiet summer in our Chinese household. Fear of failure was broken AND I was bound to achieve 'success.'
In hindsight, the focus on bouncing back onto A PATH forward meant I had to make the most of the path I was on... I never had to suffer from the fear of making the wrong choice, uncertainty or fear of being able to pay for food. The choice was removed AND I had to come to terms with the path I was given. The inner lessons of values and choices started there, born from academic failure. It's one reason why I fear how we're teaching children and young people about life choices—the pressure, the focus on scores, the single point of assessment...
I've been blessed with friends and mentors who helped me evolve my head-heart-gut alignment—different 'Crits' at various periods and phases of my journey. To the point that at the 'height of my career's outer success' after some deliberation, I resigned (literally) to care for my parents and have my own little business.
How wonderful would it be if we actively cultivated intergenerational 'crits', to help us pressure test our inner value system and keep evolving through our life transitions? Less struggle and fear, more curiosity and learning about ourselves. In community over time.
P.S Hrishikesh - I think Le Petit LU Chocolat biscuits are like the ones you had.
I was never a perfectionist but I still worried about being a failure. At some point, I realized I had to take risks and accept criticism as well as praise in my learning curve. There is a difference, though, between slapping down a half-baked creative expression and trying to do your best, to give a work of art everything in your power, to be proud of your non-perfect work. Knowing when a piece is “done” becomes a practice of balancing confidence and humility.
I would love to refer to myself as a recovering perfectionist but I’m not. I have my moments of what feels like freedom but I think it’s ingrained in my soul at this point to approach everything with a 110% mentality.
I am a 41 year old, full time employed, mother of two pursuing my masters degree and any grade less than a 100 still bothers me and makes me want to keep trying for better. I explain perfectionism as a blessing and a curse to my daughter. It is the trait that has driven me to achieve all I have and to recover from some of the most difficult parts of life. It is also like a little gremlin in my head that tells me it’s not good enough (whatever it is) and I must do better.
Sometimes it’s as specific as having Grammarly installed on my desktop to make sure all of my emails and school work are crafted correctly. Perfectionism also clings on very hard to my obsession about gaining weight and worrying about my appearance. There is a line to be drawn with it all I suppose and I am still learning to let go when it’s necessary, submit an assignment and say “it’s good enough” and look in the mirror and tell myself it’s okay to not be perfect.
When I have let go of perfection, albeit fleetingly, it’s rewarding and my mind feels as though it is floating. Balance. The key is balance.
Hello All. Thank you Suleika for another beautiful Sunday Prompt. I loved hearing of the young people about to graduate. And my favorite part was "Life is one coming-of-age arc after another, and as Jon told the students, if you identify your values and hold to them, you can’t go wrong. There is such no thing as failure, only learning. It’s so liberating and so true—to know that you can’t take the wrong path. You can only take your path." Would you be willing to share the talk? The week has been difficult with my brother having another stent put in and while he was there his father in law was taking to the same hospital with a massive heart attack and he was dying so I went to take my brother to say good bye. Yesterday was the funeral of a remarkable 85 year old man. My 88 year old mom fell Thursday and I took her to the ED and spent 8 hours to find out she is ok with 2 staples in her head. Grateful for so much.
Wow Gina, that is a lot. Wishing you and your family some peace and good health
Gosh Gina. Peace and love to you and your people. 🤍🤎
oh my goodness, that is ALOT----I am holding you in my heart gina, and sending light and strength as you move through these challenging times.
Sending hugs and heartfelt condolences, Gina. That's a lot of stress and adrenaline, and I'm guessing not much sleep. It's good to hear your Mom's doing ok. I know emergency rooms well.
The best to you. ❤️🙏🏼
Best wishes to you Gina. That is a lot!
I have never been a "Perfectionsist." I used to think it was because I was too "chill" for that.It was not that at all. It was my emotional closeness to my work, be it a drawing, a painting, a lesson ( being a teacher) or in recent times, my writing. It was only at the point where my Developmental Editor Extrodinairre told me to "Banish the Censor." All that I had been holding so close for fear of criticism from others, began to flood out of me. Best advice ever.
My mother describes dashing across campus to hand in her papers at the last minute because she wanted to make sure they were perfect. In fact, she was a very good student and always got excellent grades. She is still very careful and takes her time completing every task. As a result, she is always complaining that she never gets anything done. My mother’s papers were typed on a manual typewriter over sixty years ago when it was much harder to correct a mistake or change something. Now we have Spell Check, Grammarly, and Chat GBT that can recognize errors so the need for perfection is not as present. Still, it would not surprise me if my mother were to attend college in 2025 she would not be one of last to turn in her work.
I on the other hand like to do everything quickly and efficiently. Throughout school I was always one of the first to turn in my exams and learned that my first instincts were often correct. Nevertheless, speediness is not always good. I might accomplish a lot, but there may be some mistakes. In the last few years I have found a happy medium. I am still efficient, but I review my work and check for errors before I press send or submit I recognize that I do not have to respond to every email immediately. I can take the time to think about the best (for the moment answer).
I am hoping to retire in the next few years and I know very few people who absolutely love their jobs and think it is perfect. My career and my life have led me on a series of twists and turns that I never could have predicted. Each step would not have happened without the previous one. Every mistake and every wrong move teaches us a lesson that will bolster us in the next place. Whenever I meet a new graduate I tell them their first job does not have to be their last job and gaining experience anywhere is invaluable. I suggest trying to find a job that meets at least two out of three criteria: it is interesting, the location is easy to get to so you do not spend hours commuting, and the salary is reasonable. At least in my field it seems impossible to find all three.
It is very rare to be able to have it all and I think we have different seasons in our lives. Our focus changes with the seasons. There are times when we do not have too many commitments and can experiment, times when we want to make money, times when we are raising children, times when our health is not good, and times when we are retired and have more leisure With any luck we can continue to pursue our creative interests with varying degrees of time allotments.
There is so much wisdom here. I’m squirreling it all away. ❤️
Hi Lisa,
Your comment resonates so much with me. I am a few years from retirement as well and I have had many jobs over the 40+ years I’ve been working. My boss just celebrated 40 years with our employer. This made me think about all the paths my career has taken in that same time. There were jobs that were extremely stressful, so much so that I had to find other positions. But I wouldn’t change those experiences because I learned so much from them, I wouldn’t have my current wonderful position that I hope will be my last (full time in my career anyway).
Suleika, you nailed it when you said "There is no there there". I am not at the beginning of my career, I am looking back now. No matter the path taken, there will be joys and sorrows and growth.
SInce my cancer diagnosis I have been getting my affairs in order. And that includes at least a thousand old photos to be digitized. Every step of the process healed me. The sorting and organizing into eras took quite a long time. I have now scanned all the photos from my musical era, and my career change era, and my single mom era. I am 20 years into my second marriage and when I look back, I see the growth. I see the rewards gained from the painful life choices.
I am a stepmom married to an engineer (a normie haha) and my stepson has that brain for numbers and music. When he graduated college with the engineering degree, he wanted to take time off to tour with his band. He had an ally in his stepmom. There are many paths for people with multiple passions.
I've found getting my affairs in order to be cathartic. It stirs up many memories mainly of good times but also of people and places that I love, sights, sounds and smells I treasure. I still have to tackle all my work in terms of a filing system so that it's more logical and organised. But I'm also accepting I may not get this done. All the best with your cancer treatment and may you continue to live well.
Hi all,
Perfection - an elusive illusion
Just of reach, yet swirling in my head
The relentless Taskmaster
Captured in small moments
Of joy, of beauty
The chain loosens …
💜Deborah Colette Murphy ~ down a dirt road in the woods of Southern Oregon in the middle of the night, rain pattering on the roof
Oh the glorious young folk. Gratitude and empathy for them. Identify your values yes. So many paths and identities in a lifetime. I found a vital artery to swim down at 55. Write, write, express and connect. Who knows what’s next? Whatever it is, it won’t be perfect as perfection requires control and with cancer (with life) there is none. Surrender to the slip ups.
A visit from you two must have felt potent to the young folk - particularly in this politically provocative time.
In solidarity from London and my lovely lungs to all across the pond.
🌎💙🩵✨✌🏽
When I was a teenager, I used to wear a button badge that said, "Nobody is perfect, but who wants to be a nobody?" I had learned early on that I was never going to be perfect which is often a matter of competing and comparing ourselves with others. Having 5 sisters made this plain. Instead I decided to complement and extend the brilliance of others - acknowledging how others supported me to be "good enough" most of the time!
The perfect slogan for a button badge!
I was a teen in the Eighties and there was a button badge for everything! Especially around politics. We wore them on our school uniforms as a form of protest. Outwith school we stuck them on hats.
Can we please revive this slogan on a button? It’s so relevant today! The humor and truth is the perfect balance 😉
First of all, I've never found a better cookie. I've gone into gourmet groceries and found lots of other fancy smancy cookies but never a more perfect specimen. Perfectionism...I struggle with it...a lot. You wouldn't believe what I've done to achieve it...things that aren't even good for me. Becoming disabled due to medical issues has humbled me. I can't do what I can't do. Curses! Foiled again! It's helped me to let go of a lot of that. Right now I'm trying to learn how to paint "looser," rather than my usual realism style. If I want to have a photograph of something I should just go out and take a photo with my camera instead of painting for hours and hours to achieve the same thing. I see the person within the looser strokes. I want others to see me in mine.
Raised in the 60's and 70's in a somewhat laissez faire parenting style, I was not encumbered with the idea of perfectionism. The four kids were allowed to pursue what interested us, within reason of course. I become a decent all-rounder, - a decent athlete, a decent artist/crafter/sewer, and a good student. There was plenty of time to just hang out with friends, riding our bikes, listening to our music. I think later in life, a lot of my generation became more caught up in perfectionistic tendencies. The culture changed, our interests, and those of our kids, often became more siloed, - in the pursuit of doing "it" perfectly. Time becomes a commodity. Being a good all-rounder is not good enough anymore, and I think we end up losing a lot in striving for perfectionism.
I am going off the prompt-- to "How do I find my path? Am I going to get it right? They were all feeling the pressure to make the perfect plan that would get them to where they’re supposed to go".
For many decades, I have counseled students, of different levels, and adults of different ages contemplating what to study and career changes. So many roadblocks to the door that may eventually open where they are back to the answer someone shared long ago-"Think back to what you dreamed of before someone told you that you needed to work for a living- therein is the answer." And it usually is in one way or the other.
Oftentimes, I share stories of those who have made the choice. One such was a high school student who wanted to work somewhere in the music business. She had very strong verbal skills and hated math. Her essay was about the transition to the world of all dark clothes ripped tights and Doc's.
I had a friend whose sister was in the PR business booking concerts-- I mentioned this girl who became an intern--she continued working through college and years after until she and a friend opened their own firm- where I have connected other students with similar interests. Now it need not be in the arts---but encourage dreams-- I don't know if tha is perfection- with twists and turns--another wanted to combine neurology and engineering- neural-engineering....right is as as amorphous as perfection---or the imagined quest for that hard habit to break into the magic of unknown.
Hi Gina, sounds like a hard week indeed. Glad that your mother is okay best wishes to you and all your beloveds in this challenging week.
Deborah
Thank you, Suleika (you're in my thoughts and prayers). Thank you for your prompt, Hrishikesh. I was nodding along with several thoughts today.
Early in life, I sought the missing 1% from my 99% score but then spectacularly failed my exams for university - blame it on the band and music I was making. It was a deafening, quiet summer in our Chinese household. Fear of failure was broken AND I was bound to achieve 'success.'
In hindsight, the focus on bouncing back onto A PATH forward meant I had to make the most of the path I was on... I never had to suffer from the fear of making the wrong choice, uncertainty or fear of being able to pay for food. The choice was removed AND I had to come to terms with the path I was given. The inner lessons of values and choices started there, born from academic failure. It's one reason why I fear how we're teaching children and young people about life choices—the pressure, the focus on scores, the single point of assessment...
I've been blessed with friends and mentors who helped me evolve my head-heart-gut alignment—different 'Crits' at various periods and phases of my journey. To the point that at the 'height of my career's outer success' after some deliberation, I resigned (literally) to care for my parents and have my own little business.
How wonderful would it be if we actively cultivated intergenerational 'crits', to help us pressure test our inner value system and keep evolving through our life transitions? Less struggle and fear, more curiosity and learning about ourselves. In community over time.
P.S Hrishikesh - I think Le Petit LU Chocolat biscuits are like the ones you had.
I was never a perfectionist but I still worried about being a failure. At some point, I realized I had to take risks and accept criticism as well as praise in my learning curve. There is a difference, though, between slapping down a half-baked creative expression and trying to do your best, to give a work of art everything in your power, to be proud of your non-perfect work. Knowing when a piece is “done” becomes a practice of balancing confidence and humility.
Oh, that is beyond powerful for me, " I was never a perfectionist but I still worried about being a failure." Wow! Ann, that nailed it for me.
At 50 I’m finally okay with letting go of trying to chase and catch perfection. Honestly, I’m too tired and peace and quiet are easier to hold.
Perfectly imperfect pearls
You hang around my neck
Like an unexpected improvisation
Playing off the hidden narratives
That suggest being Other Wise.
Perfectly perfect.
To crack the barrier with your
Piercing notes of precision.
Beyond enoughness into
Excellence that will suggest
That I am above Other.
Perfectly imperfect you
Like the glimmering light that
Cascades through these letters.
Your essence - a discordant reminder
Of life’s brilliance that plays on
In spite of being anything
Other than other wise.
With love for this community. Thank you for this prompt and the beautiful insights that are being expressed.
I would love to refer to myself as a recovering perfectionist but I’m not. I have my moments of what feels like freedom but I think it’s ingrained in my soul at this point to approach everything with a 110% mentality.
I am a 41 year old, full time employed, mother of two pursuing my masters degree and any grade less than a 100 still bothers me and makes me want to keep trying for better. I explain perfectionism as a blessing and a curse to my daughter. It is the trait that has driven me to achieve all I have and to recover from some of the most difficult parts of life. It is also like a little gremlin in my head that tells me it’s not good enough (whatever it is) and I must do better.
Sometimes it’s as specific as having Grammarly installed on my desktop to make sure all of my emails and school work are crafted correctly. Perfectionism also clings on very hard to my obsession about gaining weight and worrying about my appearance. There is a line to be drawn with it all I suppose and I am still learning to let go when it’s necessary, submit an assignment and say “it’s good enough” and look in the mirror and tell myself it’s okay to not be perfect.
When I have let go of perfection, albeit fleetingly, it’s rewarding and my mind feels as though it is floating. Balance. The key is balance.