There was an incident in third grade. The teacher called my mother. I was caught red-handed. I made a small mistake on a worksheet. I didn’t like how it looked. So, I tore up the paper, threw it in the trash, and asked for a new worksheet. Twice. Three times. So, mom and I had a little talk about perfectionism. I was being way too hard on myself. I couldn’t tolerate a mistake easily fixed by an eraser. I wanted my paper to be flawless.
To be fair, Igor Stravinsky re-copied whole pages rather than scratching out one small error. He also revised his scores – repeatedly. So, I was in good company. After all, there are legitimate reasons to do things right. However, beyond this, I think perfectionism became an impediment to my performing career. My desire to sound a certain way, to play everything the way “it’s supposed to be” led to bouts of stage fright that sabotaged my ability to play my best. Inside my head, perfect became an enemy of good. It took me a long time to accept a few imperfections and allow myself to perform without constant self-judgement or self-condemnation. One of my teachers told me that I should be as understanding about my own playing as I am about the playing of others. Good advice.
It was as if the three percent that didn’t sound exactly as I wanted determined how I felt about the ninety-seven percent that sounded fine. Sometimes I let the three percent drag my performance off a cliff. In case someone doesn’t understand, one can’t play a trumpet very well with too much tension or muscular stress, because too much tension anywhere – chest, throat, tongue, even a pinky finger – can transfer to the lips and ruin your tone and agility. Basically, nervous energy can flow two ways. If it’s channeled towards attention and focus it can make performances engaging or exciting. If it’s dissipated by performance anxiety, it can render all preparation meaningless. I’ve experienced both.
During a recent medical procedure, I learned that even with preventative doses of antibiotics, up to three percent of patients still end up with a post-procedural infection. I didn’t ask, but I assume having no antibiotics would result in a much higher infection rate. Some might look at the three percent figure as “proof” that antibiotics “don’t work” because they are not “100% effective.” But there are other variables. The immune response of the patient, their general health, variations in their anatomy, the condition of the instruments, the air in the room, and so on. No matter what we do, it might not be possible to achieve perfect results every time.
Antibiotics, vaccines, x-rays, seat belts, air bags, helmets, and many other inventions have reduced our risks of dying early, but these haven’t eliminated all risks. We have become accustomed to what would have been considered “miracles” 100 years ago, yet we still demand perfection. Some will hear about a slight risk of a side effect from a drug and decide not to take it. I’ve taken just about all the vaccines there are, not because I think they’re 100% safe or 100% effective, but because the risks of contracting or spreading certain diseases far outweigh the risks of taking the vaccines. I don’t think anyone wants to be in a hospital or on a ventilator, fighting for their life. I think it’s prudent to tip the odds in our favor as much as possible.
Even if we can control our perfectionism about ourselves, we can still be perfectionists about others. Some people discard friends or family members over a 3% difference of opinion. We hold others to impossible standards even while giving ourselves a pass, often for the same infractions. Our side can do nothing wrong. Their side can’t do anything right, even if 80% of the time we basically agree with each other. Maybe all the advancements of the last 150 years or so have made us expect miracles and become incensed when we don’t get them. It seems to me we take an awful lot of things for granted.
We want social problems that have been festering for decades to be cured overnight. And when solutions don’t come fast enough, we get angry and blame whoever is in charge. Could it be that we are all part of the problem as well as part of the solution? Is our perfectionism concerning others preventing us from striving for improvement in ourselves? What if an 80% solution is the best we can expect? If we can reduce risk or error to 3% (or less), maybe that’s better than we realize. On the other hand, if something or someone is 97% good to us, that might be as close to perfection as we’re going to get in this life.
MurrayWorks 