If Only, When

Perfectionism—

“From a Jungian perspective, it is a deeply rooted psychic mechanism that serves a very specific function: to protect the ego from confronting internal contents that it is not prepared to integrate. And among these contents is often the individual’s own inner power.”

I’ve come across many pieces on perfectionism lately, and noticed it being mirrored in my life—or that somehow it has always surrounded me, whether in my family, friends, relationships, work... 

I witness how we grapple with perfectionism and how often it holds us back—how it’s often easier for others to tell us we’re ready, that what we’re doing is good or great, than to believe it ourselves. 

I witness the underlying projection of perfectionism become criticism and dissatisfaction with all aspects of life and all the people in it. 

I witness it convince us to believe we know better than others simply because we’re more particular, seemingly keen or discerning.

I witness the taxing nature of perfectionism when there could be such simplicity in creation and the joy of expression without expectation. And how in that process we’d truly be living. 

We’d stop thinking,

worrying 

planning

revising 

rescheduling.

Dreaming of the next thing, of what if, and when—if only! Once this happens,

once I’ve done this,

once I’ve finished that,

then I can—

after I figure this out.

After I do this training,

go back to school,

get a healing.

Until then,

I’ll put off living.

I’ll turn down the ticking clock of my heart so I can stay calm and keep moving, so I can forget what living is actually about, so I can keep surviving, and check off the to-do list, lay out the ducks,

fill in the boxes. Open them up, put them on a shelf. Close the door and feel accomplished that I’ve done just as 

everybody

else. 

I tried so hard to have no regrets I did it all 

and forgot why

I was doing 

any of it 

at all.

---

I wanted so much so to give the ending to this reflection some catharsis before I shared it publicly and although I find myself in a place of rediscovering joy, letting my hobbies be hobbies, and letting my path shape something completely unexpected and new—I haven’t yet made it to the other side. I, myself, haven’t felt that catharsis yet. Or maybe that’s the lingering perfectionism talking, thinking it must a proper story or lesson to be valuable (yet again) and forgot I was only just sharing my thoughts.

And that, I think, is the purity of art and self-expression. It doesn’t have to serve a purpose to be valuable. It’s already a form of catharsis in and of itself.