ON PERFECTIONISM 

Published Fall 2023 in Oxford College's literary magazine, The Oxford Phoenix

I have struggled with the crushing weight of comparison almost as long as I can remember. But like many Oxford students, perfectionism is such an integral part of my identity that it feels almost ungrateful to say it’s something I struggle with—isn’t that why I’m here?

Would I even be me without it?

Late in my senior year of high school, my father downloaded an old home video collection onto his desktop computer. Vague curiosity (and parental insistence) dragged me to the crackly film, and I half-heartedly fixed on a chattering little character sporting bouncy pigtails and hot pink sunglasses. When the leaves were green, she blew bubbles and danced on a park bench—a few seconds later, rosy cheeks and shining eyes peered out from beneath a fuzzy unicorn suit; leaves crunched and sticky hands guarded a humble alms-bucket. Our generation really is the last whose first steps weren’t captured by an iPhone, isn’t it?

Startled by the tear that threatened to creep down my cheek, I suddenly realized I no longer knew that brave little girl who serenaded houseguests with “Do You Know the Muffin Man?” and modeled princess dresses at the grocery store. This carefree cake pop hadn’t yet read the romance right out of Romeo and Juliet, learned—and promptly forgot—how to take a derivative, hadn’t suffered through the SAT. She couldn’t speak a word of Spanish, couldn’t sing a scale; hadn’t yet given up her favorite activity (peeling blue painter’s tape off walls) to engage in Useful Pursuits. But in a way, she was so much smarter than me.

For no particular reason at all, she danced. She sang. She drew pictures. She staged homespun plays in the basement and devoted hours to tiny engineering projects—a cardboard carriage and harness for Jilly, the electronic mouse—that brought light to her own little world and those she shared it with. Her wildly overactive imagination breathed bold life into peculiar histories, half-baked characters and fantastical plots; glistening dream bubbles of authentic thought. 

I remembered. For her, reading was about joy. LinkedIn connections were simply called “friends,” and school clubs provided anything but transactional leadership roles and three pages of resume fodder. Life was simple: pianos were for counting keys (“What comes after twenty-nine?”) and horses were for petting. 

When I lost her, I lost everything.

As the “smart kids,” many of our choices are made for us. Every talent, every glimpse of Promise is honed and developed until there is nothing left. Too often, we grow up and become who we’re supposed to be—leaders, strivers, doers—and forget who we are.

By now, we are supposed to be good at things. Many of us are very good at things—chemistry, piano, tennis. But all that comes at a steep price, and every one of us has lost something along the way. We have all lost something we used to love; a spark of curiosity that no longer fits in with our life plan. This something couldn’t be commodified, it didn’t help us in school—we never quite got “good enough” for it to matter. Or maybe we did, and we lost any love we felt for it. 

Something changes when other people enter the picture. One day, the world gets a lot bigger, and we get a lot smaller. These new faces aren’t just good—they are great. Their voices aren’t pretty. They are stunning.

One day, we are no longer amazed that we can sing.

It’s tempting to forget we’re all born with confidence, curiosity, and creativity—and the charge to do something with it. We demand instead of our creativity, How can you help me? Bending creativity to our will, forcing our talents to serve us—instead of the other way around—is how we lose the chance to truly love what we’re good at. It is we who owe the creative forces at work within us; we who are charged with their care. Will we deny them, refuse to open our mouths or put our pen to paper because someone might do it better?

Throughout my time at Oxford, I have met some incredibly intelligent people. But without a center, without a purpose, without a burning desire to do something simply because they don’t know what it is they add to this world, they are as lost as the rest of us—and acutely aware of it.

If we’re going to stand any chance at being happy in this world, we must create and enjoy with reckless abandon.

 I invite my reader to join me as I reclaim my inner toddler and the right to wonder at this big, beautiful world. Leaving perfectionism behind leaves talent free to humble, amaze, and inspire us—and I have lost too much time already.

With scarcely two decades of life experience to draw from, I’m not in the habit of telling people what to do. But if I have learned nothing else so far, it’s that someone else will always sing better.

Sing anyway.