Perfectionist learns to embrace life’s messiness

Perfectionist learns to embrace life’s messiness

Commentary by Mark Griswold | FāVS News

I recently took a personality test. The results told me I was a perfectionist. I took a couple of others, and they said I was also a helper and an achiever. I’m not sure how much stock I put in online personality tests, but the process and questions are useful to some extent, nonetheless. The variety of results probably just mean that, like most people, I’m multifaceted and can’t easily be put into a box.

It was not a surprise that I’m a perfectionist. While I’m pretty easy-going when it comes to others — I’m a live -and-let-live sort of person — I like my own environment to be organized. Psychoanalyzing myself, it probably stems from the fact that my early childhood was chaotic. Both of my parents were artist types. 

The house was messy and their relationship with each other and the world around them was messy. I’m an artist type, too, but again, I’m multifaceted, so the freewheeling spirit that many artists display is not what I tend toward.

As an example, look at my computer desktop or my physical desktop for that matter, and you’ll see no clutter of any kind. I have no icons on my computer desktop. I have no papers on my desk. When I was a kid, I used to clean not only my own room, but my friend’s room as well. 

I’m the opposite of a packrat. I probably get rid of too many things in the name of decluttering, and I love organizing. I could spend my entire life just making lists and sorting things. The fact that my music library and my photos are not perfectly organized yet is a latent cause of stress for me.

I’m trying to get better at dealing with chaos though. When we pray for patience, God doesn’t give us what we think we want, nothing to wait for, he gives us opportunities to practice patience, missing every green light on our way somewhere, often when we’re already running late. 

For me and my perfectionism, he gifted me with three boys. Boys’ default setting is typically chaos, messiness and noise. All I ever wanted in children is the von Trapp children, singing “So Long, Farewell” in their perfectly pressed and matching outfits. Instead, I have the ninja apocalypse and toys and clothing scattered everywhere.

I used to do stand-up, and my set was called “I blame my kids.” It was filled with the typical jokes about raising children and the stress it often causes. The dark reality is that I too often blame my kids for the stress in my life. 

My idea of a perfect home is Scandinavian minimalism and a Parisian salon of the 1920s, sitting around drinking Beaujolais and discussing the finer points of existentialism with Gertrude Stein and Marcel Proust, not dinosaur chicken nuggets and Minecraft. But the better angels of my nature tell me that I really “blame my kids” for how good my life is, even if it doesn’t appear so in a superficial sense.

Everything worth having takes work. To say that the meaning of life is suffering may be a bit too Nietzschean, but there is more than a grain of truth to it. Many of us, especially in an increasingly hedonistic and self-absorbed society, could benefit from remembering that truth. 

Salvation is fantastic but few of us want the sanctification that goes along with it. We all want to get to heaven but none of us wants to carry the cross that takes us there.

So, I’m working at embracing imperfection. It has to be that way because, besides being a perfectionist, I’m also someone who wants to do “all the things.” 

One of my favorite authors, Sylvia Plath said “I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.” 

I have so many stories I want to write, books I want to read and trips I want to take. I also have 50,000 photos that need to be organized into albums and meta tagged with the correct date, location and people’s names. I will get to some of it in due time. It’s good to have goals. 

Organization can also be a virtue. After all, the first thing God did when he created the universe was to bring order out of chaos. The corresponding vice to organization though is control, which is a form of pride. 

Yes, we are God’s stewards on this Earth, meant to help bring some order to the chaos even if, more often than not, we end up creating more chaos. We must never lose sight of the fact that God is ultimately in control and allows, to some extent, the chaos to reign so as to strengthen our humility and understanding. 

So, if I don’t get to it all, that’s OK. Not only will the larger world go on, my own personal world will, too, and I’ll be better for it. If I spend too much time organizing my past, I’ll miss out on my present. I may never gaze upon the Sagrada Familia, but in some small but more important way, the family I have right in front of me is more sacred. 

Furthermore, God’s gift of grace can only be present in imperfection. That’s not to say we should strive to make mistakes, but when we do, we can rejoice in the gift that is grace from God and each other.

When I get frustrated because my children left their jackets on the floor, toothpaste in the sink and milk on the counter, or didn’t get out of bed after the third or fourth wake up call, I can remind myself that these are minor things. 

How much greater is my own Father in heaven’s frustration over the greater follies I commit on a daily basis? I may be a perfectionist to some extent, but I am far from perfect.

So, I’m working on showing my children grace. I’m also working on showing myself grace. I have a happy marriage in no small part because my wife may just be the most patient and grace-filled person on earth. My kids are, all in all, good kids. We are blessed more than most families on this planet for the simple fact that we have a roof over our heads and food in our pantry. 

While most of that blessing is God’s benevolence and mercy, I need to remind myself to take the win and acknowledge my own part in making it a reality. Given my upbringing, I could have ended up with a failed marriage, estranged from my kids and perhaps even dead. My life is not perfect, but it is amazingly good. My cup is not only half full, it is overflowing, and that is perfect.

The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.