Seeking Perfection

 

 

How close do you get to perfection - in anything - ever?

Yeah, that's what I thought - me neither.

Years ago, on a family vacation in Lancaster County (Pennsylvania Dutch/Amish country), I saw pamphlets and signs stating that Amish quilt-makers intentionally added a mistake to each quilt they made because only God is perfect - and they didn't want to upstage God.

I got annoyed every time I thought about those notices (and I went on an amusing rant about it in a post called Those Damn Amish Folk)*.

The notion that perfection is attainable persists, though. Something in our culture (or is it something inside us?) leans toward the belief that there is a way, a path, to perfection. And that someone, somewhere, is walking that path. At least it feels like we all (at least sometimes) keep looking for that path.

The truth is: perfection is b.s. None of us has it - and nothing we create will have it either.

The other day I (re)realized how important it is to share our mistake stories.

My reminder came in an e-mail update from a friend writing about a beautiful project she'd developed. She mentioned that the project was already out of her hands when she found a mistake.

Her beautiful project wasn't perfect!

After all her hard work, after all her checking and re-checking. After the project was sent out into the world, then she found a mistake. Ugh!

I didn't respond with "Ugh!" though, I actually smiled. I might have had a different reaction if my friend had tossed her project out without love, if she'd just thrown it together - if she didn't care.

Reading about the mistake in my friend's project (the one she poured her heart into) felt heart-opening. Not because I wish her ill (I don't) - but because it's encouraging to read confirmation of what I know: that I/we aren't perfect, I/we can't achieve perfection (except to be our perfectly imperfect selves) - in ourselves or our products.

Knowing that someone else "gets" that (my friend's e-mail update was grace-fully and deeply wrapped around the concept of perfect imperfection) felt good.

And there's something connective (¿the glorious team feeling of "we're all bozos on this bus"?) about the universality of imperfection. When people share their stumble-steps on the path to glory I feel close to them!

There are a number of my stumble-step stories on this blog. That's because I think it's as helpful to share our less-than-perfect stories as it is to share our moving-forward and happy-dappy stories. It's important to share our wholeness - and imperfection is part of our wholeness.

One of my favorites is a mistake I made describing an e-course that concentrated on self-acceptance.

When I explained what the course was about I wanted to make a point that it did NOT waste your time evaluating (or working on) what was wrong with you, but was made to help you assess what is right with you.

It was supposed to read: Want to Find Out What's Right with YOU, NOT WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?

Unfortunately, instead of capitalizing and emboldening the phrase NOT WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU as I'd planned on doing - I made a typo and "NOT" became "NOW"...

so my words asked whether you wanted to find out what's right with you - and then - in bold capitals asked:

NOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?

Kinda like a Mommy Dearest Academy class - oy!

One of my latest (oh, there are so many!) bloopers involves the gorgeous 2012 quotes and photos calendar that Slightly-British Daughter put together. We just realized that the calendar didn't upload correctly from it's original file - somehow September and December ended up with only 29 days in our imperfect (dare I say, Square-Peg?) calendar.

{FYI - Slightly-B reformatted the thing and uploaded it again - and you can download (or, re-download, if you downloaded it earlier this year) the new, improved, normal calendar here - because I'm pretty sure Square-Peg shortened months won't catch on.}

So, how close do YOU get to perfection - ever? What if we encourage each other to do what we can with our projects (and our Selves!) - keep moving ahead with love (not meh or half ass stuff) but maybe give up seeking perfection? What do you think?

*An online search today for those those intentional Amish quilt mistakes yields nothing - nada,zip - only denial and information about "the myth", so maybe you won't find those pamphlets and signs in Lancaster County anymore. Good!

Comments

[Maribeth Doerr]

Okay - I have to share a story with you. LOL. I took a quilting class and fell in love with it - but only 1/2 of it. I love making the quilt tops but putting the whole sandwich together and quilting it together to finish is a whole other story. I lack confidence. I ended up with 12 finished tops, no quilts.

My mother picked one of the tops out and asked me to finish it for her. Sure, no problem. And she'd nag a bit and say I'd better hurry up before she died. In my head, I put off finishing it because to do so would mean it was time for her to die. You can guess what happened - she died and the quilt was not done. It was sandwiched and pinned but not quilted and it's been laying on top of my sewing machine. Every time I look at it, it becomes the guilt instead of the quilt.

Through the work of the amazing Cath Duncan and my grief coach training, we looked at the truth about the guilt quilt and what to do about it. I realized that the reason I'd never finished it had nothing to do with my fear my mom would die soon (and the truth is it was 2 YEARS that I procrastinated finishing it so obviously the story I created wasn't true). I didn't finish it because my mom could be a critical person and I didn't want her to point out my flawed machine quilting. It wouldn't be perfect enough - so I didn't do it. But the guilt quilt is still here and what I'm going to do is purposely make it flawed. It's a long story about how Cath helped me get to Thing 1 and Thing 2 (each representing a problem) but to make a long story short, I've purchased a yard of fabric with Dr. Seuss's Thing 1 & Thing 2 from the Cat and the Hat. I'm going to stitch the characters onto the guilt quilt in random spots - and this will REALLY scream. The characters are blue and red and this quilt is in shades of brown and beige. LOL - my mom would think it looks ridiculous and it WILL look that way but it's how I'm going to embrace my imperfection with some whimsy. The quilt will then tell a story and just maybe it'll break my block over finishing the rest of the quilts - imperfectly of course :)

[Square-Peg Karen]

I'm jumping up and down here - I can SEE Thing 1 and Thing 2 on your guilt quilt - beautiful re-working of a story (and a quilt)! I hope you have a lot of fun with it!

I love a lot of things about this story, Maribeth (as well as the story-teller - grin) - sounds like you and I have a similar thing with falling in love with & then running with creating stuff (12 quilt tops - I love it! For me it's often knitted things), love how you embrace your whimsy (and your imperfection) - I hope you share a picture of your whimsical quilt!

[Teresa]

Love this! And yes, really glad that I've found the typo on my beautiful project. I wonder who will find it? heehee

It's true, though, that an imperfection, honestly noticed at the last moment, is a little bit of our humanness reflected in our work. And our job is to learn to embrace it without losing our desire to do our best. To some this could be a delicate line....

Hugs and butterflies,
~Teresa!

[Merry ME]

That whole amish "imperfection" thing never bothered me. In fact it kind of gave my unmatched corners and skewed stitching lines permission to be just the way they were. I have learned, sometimes to my chagrin, that I am not perfect. But I still hate type-o's. And what's funny about that is I am a terrible proof-reader! I don't see the mistakes until they are posted, or published, or mailed, etc. Grrrr!

P.S. Maribeth, I bet your mom is looking down from heaven and smiling.

[Mary Ellen]

It's kinda funny, but for me I'm ok with imperfection in stuff I do ( well, except maybe work related stuff). My struggle with imperfection lies in ME. Not physically but internally - in my inability to BE who I think I am/should be/could be. I'm frequently striving to be better, kinder, more tolerant - WHATEVER. I find it so difficult to accept me & all my imperfections even as I celebrate you for yours.

[Square Peg Guy]

In college I learned to "aim for success, not perfection." Otherwise, I don't think I'd've made it. Perfectionism can be very disabling. It can prevent someone from starting a project, or cause someone to drag out a project so it's never completed.

The Northern Exposure episode that features the blind piano tuner briefly mentions the Amish imperfect stitch idea, although I think it was actually a woven rug, not a quilt. The piano tuner purposely tunes the D (or A) above middle C a bit flat.

I may or may not have included a mistake in this comment in order to refrain from being perfect. I apologize in advance if this causes you any duress or discomfort.

[Square-Peg Karen]

I haven't found it yet, Teresa -- but then I haven't been hunting; I've been reading the layout ideas in order to practice them.

Love what you said here: "our job is to learn to embrace it without losing our desire to do our best" (particularly love the words OUR BEST -- as opposed to better than someone else).

[Square-Peg Karen]

Yea for permission, Merry Me! And I hear you with the type-o's!

[Square-Peg Karen]

Isn't that a funny thing, Mary Ellen (and one I SO 'get') - celebrating others' imperfections while having trouble accepting our own?

I had the most incredible reframe on that a second ago and it fell out one of the holes in my brain - argh! Well, let me just say that celebrating people's imperfections is deep and good work (there's WAY too much a$$-kicking, brow beating and meanness in our culture - and having people appreciate and even CELEBRATE our less-than-perfectness is encouraging!).

Maybe part of what we're made to do for each other, especially as folks who realize their Square-Pegness, is celebrate FOR each other (because it IS hard to see the beauty in our own flaws)...?

I celebrate YOU! Not that I've noticed any imperfections ; )

[Square-Peg Karen]

Square Peg Guy, I read this last night and I'm STILL smiling. Love your humor!!! Wow about your college, I think a lot of folks got a different message (and what you said about perfectionism - so true!).