The Pitfalls of Perfectionism
To say my parents expected me to have good grades and be well versed in all things domestic is sharing a story that many other girls my age experienced. I was not alone in this by any means. And if anything, my parents had the same expectations by their parents and of themselves. Excellence and perfectionism were intricately linked and thought to be the way out of struggling in life and into success, happiness and freedom. And in a country of a billion people where the ones who came out on top were literally the ones who came out on top, it’s no surprise that this idea of perfectionism is pervasive in south Asian culture—and likely, many other cultures where the infrastructure for higher education is poor, where the opportunities afforded to the lower and middle classes are few and where the traditional roles of men and women are entrenched in society.
These beliefs and values began as a means of survival, a way to ensure that subsequent generations wouldn’t suffer or struggle externally—meaning a way to ensure that we were secure from a financial standpoint. But those belief systems are misplaced in our current culture. They no longer hold value and instead, contribute towards a need to please, a need to perform, and a need to succeed. In a culture where success is not limited to those with excellent grades, beauty or even societal status; where education is available to all in the public health system, where women can live independently and don’t have to fulfill traditional gender expectations of getting married and having children by a certain age, the pursuit of perfectionism is pointless.
My father grew up as the oldest of 8 siblings in a small village in India. His mother was a housewife and his father was a tax collector. He lived in a 1 room house and often studied in the late hours with a kerosene lamp. With a sharp mind and keen interest in knowledge, my father excelled in his school work. He was at the top of his class and with that, pursued a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry and then a master’s degree as well. Many of his friends and classmates did not necessarily go on to obtain higher level education, but some did. He was able to secure admission to a university in Manchester, England—his ticket out of a rural life—and obtained a second master’s in chemistry. He was a go-getter, academically inclined, striving to excel in all that he did —painting, cooking etc. Shortly after marrying my mother, they arrived in the US in 1972. They lived in a 1 bedroom apartment and once my sister was born, they took turns taking care of her during the day and night. They moved into a house when I was 6 months old and my brother came about 2.5 years later.
My parents sponsored his whole family to come from India. They didn’t need to be an honors level student to leave India. They didn’t need to win a beauty pageant to have a chance at success. They didn’t need to be wealthy to make the trip over to the US.
The US in the meantime, was in the midst of its hippie, make-love-not-war phase—a far cry from an industrialist society at the time. It was a time for women’s liberation, securing the right to vote, obtain contraception and pursue higher level education. There were so many opportunities to make it in America. You could be a journalist or engineer or lawyer or writer or be an admin. Coming to America was what so many immigrants aimed for ..and so once here, there really was no need to strive for perfection.
Perfectionism had no place. Until I decided that I wanted to become a doctor. Every Asian parent’s dream for their child. With that came the push to study, to focus on my schoolwork, to cut out frivolous activities. Every minute spent doing something else was time not spent for studying. It was the 80s. We were not yet in the era of “there are no losers, everyone gets a trophy.”
Our parents took pride in their children being smart, going to good schools, being pretty or handsome, and for the girls, knowing how to speak their language, say their prayers, know their way around the kitchen including making and serving tea to guests. Family friends would wish their children were like me. And my parents would sometimes tell me to be like other well-accomplished kids. Comparison was rampant, ubiquitous. We were our parent’s reputation—the schools we got into, our career choice, marrying someone they approved of.
But as a newlywed and as I progressed through my medical training, the idea of perfection took an insidious toll. Making a mistake in the care of a patient were life and death matters and could have disastrous consequences. The busier I got, the less time I had to figure things out. Things needed to be done efficiently and correctly—the first time. I did not feel I had the luxury of time and so with the ideal of perfectionism came control. No room for error. I did not give grace to my husband to figure things out or learn things on his own time. And so I took on more and more believing that he was not capable. Nothing was good enough for me—even when he said he had tried his best. And so the downward spiral began in our relationship. Coupled with a new diagnosis of ADD as an adult, striving for perfection meant I didn’t want to take risks. It meant I procrastinated and struggled to complete projects—for fear of failure.
I share this because we often want things to be perfect. In medicine, we strive for perfection. We don’t strive for mediocrity. We want our kids to go to the best schools. We want our children to be competitive in athletics or academics or other extracurricular in order to stand out. But I would say instead that we should always strive for doing our best, even if that means that the next day, we try to do better. And when we do our best, it has to be good enough. With all of this, I am giving myself permission to do my best and have that be good enough, even if it isn’t perfect.