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The Perfection Delusion: Why Earning Your Worth Is a Trap
We live in an outcome-based culture that permeates the idea of perfection. Instead of believing that perfection is a state of being, we believe that it is a result. Perfection is something that occurs after something else has happened. It’s the outcome of our actions. Perfection only happens when we can fix what is broken. With this outlook on perfection, we’ve treated it as a destination. It’s the Promised Land, while we believe that we are in the wilderness. The truth that was never told to us is that the wilderness is, in fact, the Promised Land. Our perception doesn’t allow us to see it. We choose not to see it because we believe our circumstances can get “better.” Our lives become an endless improvement project, and then we die. This belief is not the life that I would like to live.
Our weakness in recognizing our perfection lies in the belief that we must do something to earn it. We’ve only been taught that we have to work for the things we want. The best things in life require effort. Meanwhile, true perfection requires nothing. You only have to let go of the idea that you are imperfect. It’s not about changing what you see. It’s more about seeing clearly. Again, when we look at nature, it doesn’t have to earn its beauty. The sun shines on all of us regardless of our efforts. How weird would it be if you took a look at a sunset and thought, “I have ways that I can improve on this.”
The mind gets in the way of our inherent perfection because it is a measuring device. It takes two things that it perceives to be separate and compares whether they are better or worse, or more or less. It’s also a device that prioritizes completeness. As mentioned, the mind only cares when things come to completion and ruminates if we aren’t able to find our happy ending. Our happy ending is our expectation, and our goals aren’t complete until the ending meets that expectation. When there is no happy ending, something is missing, and we must find what that something is.
With a mind to comparison, some people believe they achieve their sense of perfection by linking their self-worth to fixing the problems of others. We believe we are offering support, but by wanting to be the primary source of help in the relationship, we are simultaneously saying that a person is not capable of helping themselves. Our evidence of perfection is the fact that we can help someone else who’s “less fortunate.” This isn’t liberation. This is creating dependence through a spiritual ego. We are saying that we are better than the person who needs help, and they can’t possibly be perfect without us. It also stems from a place of insecurity in the helper, with a subconscious need to feel needed, in control, and valuable.
Perhaps this is how I felt when I thought I could bring about change within an organization. It’s not that I wanted to bring change, but that I wanted to fix it. I dared to believe that I was the only one who could do so. I think I was drawn to projects that dealt with fixing earlier on. Attracted to things that I see as broken and feel a pull to help fix the broken state.
The fixer doesn’t wait for someone to ask for advice. Their help is unsolicited. When doing this, we fail to consider how the other person feels when we jump in to provide solutions and advice. What happens then when a person doesn’t want our help? We suffer from burnout, exhaustion, and resentment because the person we seek to help often prioritizes themselves over us. It’s also very ironic that the fixer has difficulty receiving help, as this help only diminishes their perceived perfection.
For us to feel worthy of our perfection, we must feel like we’ve earned it. In our comparison-driven mind, we are saying that for me to be perfect, I must be better than the person who didn’t earn it. To get a promotion, I must work harder than the next person. The pursuit of perfection often becomes a competition where only one person appears to be capable of achieving perfection. This isn’t how it works. The perfection you seek isn’t waiting for you to be successful. It’s hidden within you the entire time, waiting for you to see it within yourself. This recognition comes quickly. It takes no effort outside of changing our flawed perspective of ourselves.
Here, we arrive at the heart of our thesis. Perfection doesn’t come through changing anything. Perfection comes from stopping our resistance to what is in front of us. If we change the way we look, the way we behave, and the experiences we face, things will be perfect. The inverse happens. The desire to change only causes resistance, and this resistance becomes our suffering. We don’t need to make any changes. We don’t need to change our bodies, emotions, mistakes, relationships, past or present, and we don’t need to change any of our pain. Instead, we have to remove ourselves from the idea that life is an improvement project. Once we let go of this assumption, we will start to see the inherent perfection in everything. Not because we made another change, but because the perfection was already there.
When we want to change something, we are seeking something other than what is already here. This yearning for something different keeps us blind to what is here. Instead of seeking something else, what if we tried to see what was in front of us with new eyes? The issue with dealing with pain or any other uncomfortable situation is that we tend to seek comfort. What if, instead, we decided to sit within the discomfort to see the comfort within it? Instead of chasing pleasure, can we allow it to come within the pain? This is not to discredit the pain, but a superpower begins to develop when we can hold both in balance. Can we look at the negativity in our lives and say, “This, too, belongs.”
The idea of perfection is so unfamiliar because we were taught the opposite from the very beginning of our lives. We weren’t able to get 100% on a test unless we studied and earned that perfect A+. From grade school up to death, we struggle to be good enough. We try so hard to shape our world into something acceptable. The world doesn’t give us an alternative. So, when you read these words that tell you that perfection doesn’t need effort, you will instantly believe that I am wrong.
You will examine not only your life but also the world and point out its negativity. You will quote aphorisms you’ve heard all your life, like “no pain, no gain.” I counter by saying that this is how we’ve been conditioned to think. The truth is that perfection doesn’t need your belief. It doesn’t need your readiness and willingness to think differently for it to exist. It simply is whether you recognize it or not.
Questions and Responses
This sounds nice, but isn’t trying to improve ourselves a good thing? How do we grow if we just accept everything as “perfect”?
That’s the core of the misunderstanding we’ve all been taught. This isn’t about apathy or giving up on growth. It’s about shifting the motive for that growth. True growth comes from a place of wholeness, not from a belief that you are broken and need fixing. When you accept the perfection of “what is”, even your flaws and discomfort, you stop resisting reality. Change can still happen, but it comes naturally, without the suffering and stress of feeling like you’re constantly failing to meet an impossible standard.
I was always taught “no pain, no gain.” Are you saying that effort is pointless?
Effort has its place, but we’ve confused effort with worthiness. We believe that effort earns us perfection, much like achieving an A+ on a test. The sun, however, doesn’t have to “earn” its beauty; it just is. This article argues that our inherent perfection is the same, regardless of our efforts. The “pain” we experience is often just the resistance our mind creates by comparing what is to what we think it should be. The goal isn’t to eliminate effort, but to uncouple it from your sense of value.
You mentioned the “Fixer” mentality. I genuinely like helping people. Is that a bad thing?
Helping others is a beautiful human trait. The “Fixer” mentality, however, is different. It’s a compulsion to solve others’ problems as a means to validate your own worth. It comes from a subconscious belief that your value is tied to your usefulness. Ask yourself: Do you feel valuable when you’re not solving a problem for someone? Can you receive help as easily as you give it? If not, your helping may be less about true support and more about satisfying a deep need to feel in control and needed, which can unintentionally create dependence in others.
How can my pain, my mistakes, or my difficult circumstances possibly be “perfect”? That feels invalidating.
This is the most challenging and radical part of the idea. It’s not about saying your pain is “good” or that you should enjoy suffering. It’s about recognizing that these experiences are part of the complete, whole fabric of your life. We are taught to label things as “good” or “bad” and to constantly fix the “bad.” Perfection, in this new sense, is about holding space for all of it. It’s the ability to look at your pain and say, “This, too, belongs.” The moment you stop resisting it as something that shouldn’t be there, you find a new kind of freedom and peace right in the middle of the discomfort.