Why We Chase the Idea of "Perfect"

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Have you ever had something turn out far from how you planned it?

In the summer of 2015, I walked the Camino de Santiago, the millennia-old pilgrimage route, across Spain ending at the tomb of St. James, the Apostle. I planed to make it a perfect Camino. It would be the Camino of Caminos. Books would be written about it. Tales of my adventures would be shared. Songs would be sung of my escapades.

Instead, I left Spain feeling defeated and with a broken foot. That is, my Camino fell far from my idea of perfect. Because it wasn't perfect, I felt like a failure.

Berne Brown gives insight into the danger of perfectionism in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, when she wrote: 

"Perfectionism is not the same thing has striving to be your best. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame. It's a shield. It's a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it's the thing that's really preventing us from flight."

But the question at hand is, "Why do we chase perfection?"

If we know we can never have the perfect, why do we still pursue it? If we know that 'perfect' prevents us from thriving and actually hinders our growth and prevents us from flight, then why do we want it so dearly? I would argue that the reasons we chase the perfect are similar to why I chased the perfect Camino, and I would bet it is similar to why we chase perfect in our dating lives.

  1. Are we dating or trying to find a date that impresses our friends? Someone we treat more like a show pony and less like a person?
  2. Are we expecting to date based on unrealistic standards and expectations? "My dates must be rom-com worthy. My date must be as pure as the Blessed Mother. My date must be a Disney prince."
  3. Are we seeking approval from our family of the girl or guy we bring home? From my experience, I remember not being able to bring home specific dates to meet my family because she was the wrong major at university, or not pretty enough based on my family's standards.
  4. Do we hate the idea of failure so much that we stay in a toxic relationship that damages ourselves?
  5. Is our judgment clouded by a bit of naivety?

If we are going to be honest, it comes down to two things.

First, when we date, are we trying to live up to someone else's expectations for us that are not our expectations? Do we write off people because we are more concerned about finding the spouse we want to impress others with or gain their approval and affirmation from, instead of looking for the spouse we need?

Second, have we convinced ourselves that God cannot be trusted to provide what we need? Not trusting God is the first step in making ourselves into idols, and falling into the trap that we can solve our problems on our own.

Christians are called to a certain kind of perfection, as Christ calls us to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. However, traditionally this means to live as God-like as we can in the state that we are in as assisted by God's divine grace. Therefore, we work on being our best now so that God can perfect us through our experiences. The same goes for our dating life.

My Camino fell far from my idea of perfect. Because it wasn't perfect, I felt like a failure.

When I reflect on my experience of chasing the perfect Camino, I had to ask myself why I was chasing perfection to begin with:

  1. I thought it would be a good story that would impress my friends.
  2. I had formed unrealistic expectations of the Camino by reading only successful and exciting stories, and even personal fantasies I developed through hours of daydreaming, while ignoring the failures and struggles.
  3. I wanted to prove something and get approval from family.
  4. I placed pressure on myself to not fail and walk into Santiago on my own two feet.
  5. I failed to listen to others' wisdom who told me to stop walking because my foot looked like a balloon.

Completing the Camino was a noble accomplishment and came to be an incredible experience, one I still value today. However, the problem I initially faced was two-fold. First is that I was trying to walk someone else's Camino and not my Camino. Second, I decided to make my pilgrimage perfect instead of allowing God to perfect me through the pilgrimage.

Chasing the perfect can be how we distort something inherently good by seeking to apply an attribute of God to something that is not God—be it a person, a relationship, an experience, or ourselves. A few years after my Camino, I was able to reconcile my experience and apply what I had learned to other areas of my life, including dating and now marriage.

By letting go of my idea of the perfect and not chasing something that does not exist, I was able to receive, in God's "perfect" timing, God's ideal—not mine—of what was "perfect" was for me. 

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