Good is Never Good Enough
Ever since I was a little girl, I have felt the need to be perfect, to have everything in my life perfectly lined up. Throughout all aspects of my life, whether is it soccer, school, appearance, cleanliness, timing, whatever it may be if one thing is to fall out of line, my entire world crumbles around me. I know this may sound super dramatic and ridiculous, but it is merely the truth. You see, I have what many people define as perfectionism. This is a type of disorder that I have dealt with for as long as I can remember and it impacts my life greatly.
I strive to achieve perfection in everything I do. I am constantly setting goals, striving to be better and achieve more. For me, good is never good enough. I constantly work and put the effort in, in every aspect of life, yet I am never satisfied with the results. Since the very first day I entered school in preschool, I always received the highest grade possible, whether it was a gold star, a check plus, or an A plus. Entering high school I was faced with the harsh reality of difficult classes. My mind was challenged for the first time in years and receiving the highest grade possible was nearly impossible. I continue to work hard, striving for all A’s all the time, yet the truth is that this can not always happen. In math class last year, my grade average was a 99 and I had high expectations for myself. I was so successful in that class that receiving anything below a 95 was unacceptable. One day, I remember vividly my teacher slowly passing out each corrected test, sliding the crisp paper onto each desk. With every test handed back, emotion built up in the room, students sighing or groaning at the grade that lay before them. Then, my teacher slid the paper in front of me, upside down, hiding the grade I had received. Expecting a high grade, I flipped the test over with ease, only for my heart to stop and my stomach to sink. At the top of my test in large, red letters marked an A minus! A frickin A minus!! I felt as though the world had stopped spinning. Tears welled up in the back of my eyes, my forehead and cheeks becoming uncomfortably warm and droplets of sweat began to run down my back and my armpits became significantly moist.
Oh no, this cannot be happening, I thought to myself.
The amount of disappointment I felt and the self hatred that formed all because of an A minus blew my mind. I felt as though the walls were caving in on me. For days I dwelled over the “horrible grade” I had received. Negative, horrible thoughts raced through my head.
You idiot. You’re so stupid. You are so dumb. Of course you would get an A minus.
Self hatred traveled through my veins for nearly a week. I could not stand the face I saw in the mirror. My reflection disgusted me. Every morning I would wake up and refuse to look in the mirror because I knew it would only remind me of how much I was disappointed in myself. Looking back now on the entire incident I realize how ridiculous I had acted. But, the truth of the matter is that no matter the grade I received, even if it was the highest grade possible, for me it was never good enough. And nothing I do in life will ever be good enough because I know it can always be better. I can always do more to make it better. I will constantly work to reach that idea of perfection.
Good is never good enough.
Good is never good enough, yet perfect is unachievable. I strive and work hard for everything in my life in attempt to reach perfection, yet I will never truly be able to reach my goal. No matter how close I come to reaching perfection, despite the fact that it lay fingertip length away, it’s so close I can almost taste it, I will never reach it. The closer I come to perfection, the farther away it goes. As I move closer to my goal, it merely is moved farther away because good is never good enough, I always need to achieve more. I know I am not the only one who feels this way either, I know lots of girls and guys, women and men, who obtain the same thought process that good is never good enough. Due to this realization that I am not alone, I chose to do my digital essay on the pursuit of perfection because it boggles my mind the extremes that we as humans go to, to try and reach this idea of perfection, yet no matter how hard we try we are never good enough.