The Perfectionist

I am terrible at blogging. It is a simple reality I have come to accept. It is not that I do not like writing. I think it comes down to the fact that I am hypercritical of the content I put out. If it does not meet my standards, instead of editing, I scrap the entirety and stop writing for days, weeks, and sometimes months.

I am working on my issues with perfectionism. It is something I have struggled with my entire life. At first, I doubted this was the case because I constantly felt like a failure. It seemed like nothing I did was good enough. Instead of owning this as my own issue, I transferred it onto those around me who I assumed were demanding too much of me. Perhaps it developed out of the impossible expectations of my father and some of the other male figures in my early life. In this case, where it came from is not as important as what I did with it.

Over time, I took on that impossible standard as my own albeit in a destructive way. Instead of continually pushing myself to reach it, I would take on too much and when I could not accomplish it, I would give up. This set up a destructive pattern that has lasted for the greater portion of my life.

As I grew older, I looked for ways to escape from this cycle. I looked for every shortcut possible. My goal became to put out as many “fires” in my life and, once done, prepare as best as I could for the next “fire” to start.

It was not until my life literally hit ground zero that I finally got a moment to breathe and reevaluate. After two years on disability, I went back to work at a pure commission sales job. I had never been particularly good at sales, but I committed to learning everything I could about selling and the financial services industry. Due to the fact that I had pretty much become a hermit over the years I was a factory worker, I had few people with which to build a sales pipeline. I like to think I was resourceful in using non-traditional methods to find potential clients, but ultimately I failed.

After nearly a year of pounding the pavement trying to make a career in financial services, I had to admit defeat. I had made virtually no money over that period of time and what I did make mostly went to paying back fees to the agency I was contracted under. My car had been repossessed, so I was reliant on public transportation, the charity of others, and my own two feet to get where I needed to go.

This was a situation I had never been in since I started driving. I had always had a car whether one had been given to me or I had bought it on my own. I had had a vehicle repossessed before, but that had been my call because it was a piece of shit and I refused to pay anymore money on a useless vehicle. This was a different situation entirely.

In addition to this, my family and I were in danger of losing our home. My landlord had already taken me to court for eviction proceedings and I already had a plan in place to move my family in with my mother until my then girlfriend and I could find work and get back out on our own.

My final straw in my sales job came when I closed a decently sized account and did not see a dime in commission due to the aforementioned fees. At that moment, I gave up. I had no idea what I was going to do with what seemed like the world stacked against me, but I had to do something.

The answer presented itself in a very odd way. Instead of finding something to do, I succeeded by not “doing” anything. What I mean to say is instead of scrambling to put out yet another series of “fires,” I instead surrendered to my circumstances and went through them instead of fighting them. Withing three weeks, both my girlfriend and I had jobs. They were not high paying jobs, but they were jobs. Out of the blue, my mother offered to pay my rent for me for a number of months while my family got back on its feet and, despite already being in eviction proceedings, my landlord let us stay. In less than a year, my landlord and all of my critical bills that had been in arrears had been brought current and were being paid ahead. Life had settled into a rhythm that I had never imagined it could.

So, where am I going with this? Being a perfectionist has many times prevented me to see my true path. I have been so obsessed with going above and beyond my own endurance just to prove that I could that I missed the signals that were all around me. Recently, this led me into pursuing and gaining a promotion at work that was likely one of the worst moves I could have made.

After only two months in the new position, I was stressed out to the point that I could not sleep and worked so much that I very rarely saw my children despite the fact that we lived in the same house. Instead of ignoring the signs, however, I listened and asked to be released from the position to return to what I was doing before. By paying attention to the signs I was receiving from my body and my mind, I found myself in a new position that paid the same as the management position I had given up and with far less stress. I still work a lot of hours, but that is my choice and it is not mandated.

In life and spirituality, we often find ourselves striving to be better than everyone else (I have at least). I have often found that I push myself for the accolade of a new title or degree just so I could have a benchmark to measure my progress by. I found that no matter how far I got, it was never enough.

I missed the fundamental lesson in all of this. Life is not about checking off things on a to-do list or a bucket list. Life is about living. Every moment is an experience and leads to other experiences based on how we act or react to it.

The same goes for spiritual practice.

Initiations and rituals are all part of the journey, not an end in themselves. I thought this for a long time even though I did not want to admit it to myself. Regular practice as part of, not the sole focus of, one’s life is where the real evolution happens.

Powers and abilities are incidental; they are the side effect of daily interaction with life through spiritual practice. The true goal is building a daily and ever-expanding relationship with Life. Every day you awaken is a new opportunity to deepen that relationship. Everything else is just icing on the cake.

Ben McInnis