The Pursuit of Perfection

So... This along with my next blog (Sexual Incongruence) have been in edit mode for the past several weeks... Between school and work and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life... My blog and thoughts have suffered. So My mission for the next hour at work is to crank these thoughts out so that I can get on to newer and more current thoughts...


So onto the pursuit of perfection... This is a very interesting topic. To me at least. I never really understand how people decide where to bend, compromise, settle, and the like for that special someone. However, I do believe that no single person is perfect. Even if a person has the attributes that you consider perfect for you, they are guaranteed to be flawed in some other way. However, is the difference in how we see those flaws? How we navigate over, under, around, and through them? I am also usually curious about what a person's markers for success are in a relationship, and how you gauge whether or not this one is the one for you... Often times, the couples who everyone else sees as perfect do not see themselves as such... Surface perfection, in my opinion, is not perfection at all. It is a shell. A cloak. A facade that portrays what we think others want to see. In contrast, though, reality is raw and unedited... real. Genuine. But how do we know the difference? And who decides?


 My two best (female) friends and I ... actually I have probably had this conversation with all of my closest friends recently... But this is certainly a debate that comes up between myself and Kris often. I strongly believe that even if you find someone who fits/compliments you in every way that matters... You will still have to send that person through an orientation process which may be never-ending in some cases. And you too will have to get through an orientation period with that person as well. By this, I mean that there is a learning curve that must be allotted for and tackled in order for a relationship to be successful and prosperous. This is true for any type of relationship really.


Now where the debate comes into play is in the way that orientation plays out. Kris believes that you should not have to "train/instruct" a person in any way to do the right things. in her experience, this has not been necessary and as a result she feels like if a person is ill-equipped to behave accordingly, they simply do not belong with the person. I, on the other hand, believe that you have to be able to verbalize your wants/needs/desires in someway or be prepared to be incapable of fairly holding them against the person you are in relations with. However, for me... there seems to be a disconnect between believing that in theory, and practicing it in truth. But that is a different story for a different blog.

Ultimately, I guess what I am getting at is: 1.)Are we all looking for perfection in some sense of the word?  2.)How do we know that we have found it? 3.) Does perfection mean without the need for additional work? Or No assembly required? and 4.) Are we so busy seeking out perfection that we are passing up Perfectly Good in the process? [[ i.e.- do we nitpick at things that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things only to find that we should have been perfectly satisfied with the foundation in existence]]?

I think a great metaphor for this is the search for living quarters... a house... a HOME...

You begin your search with a list of what you would like, what you wouldn't like... Your hard limits and your soft ones (I personally think that at least all romantic relationships should begin this way... The pre-list so that you know what you're looking for with a bit of adaptability in case what you need ends up surprising you...!]] Even if this list is only mental, you have an idea of the type of neighborhood you will want, what type of commute you're willing to accept, how many bedrooms and bathrooms would be comfortable for you, closet space. You also have an idea of what you would compromise on, and for what cost. If you found a really inexpensive rate, is that enough to compromise on how safe the neighborhood is? If you will be really comfortable with room sizes, is a longer commute now more feasible? And even most of these compromises don't quite come into play until you have started the hunt. But at this point, your marker for perfection is pre-existing...whether you realize it or not. It can sometimes be colored by experience, but let's be honest... what CAN'T be colored by experiences?

So now you've started actually hunting for homes, experiencing the market a bit, you have a better idea of what is realistic and what is feasible. Does this change your view of what perfection is? Do you maintain that concept of a perfect house, but decide upon a suitable more practical home? Are your thoughts about that home now compared to your previous view of perfection, or do you come up with ways to make the feasible home into a duplicate of your dream home? And can you do this without changing the place altogether? Would that, essentially, be a more costly attempt? And does it require comparison to other homes and spaces in order for you to determine whether or not you have found what you are looking for? Is there criteria, or do you just KNOW?

Is this home an extended project? And if so, does that make it more or less perfect for you? Is its perfection attached to the amount of work put into it in that it wasn't perfect before the work? Or in that it is not and won't ever be perfect BECAUSE you had to work? And what would the ratio be for determining the amount of work you are willing to put in in order to take advantage of the potential output? SO MANY QUESTIONS! lol

And then finally... In our search for somewhere to be comfortable... did we spend so much time blinded by the concept of perfection that we passed up several opportunities to be adequately satiated? Are we satisfied with adequate? Can what was once adequate become inadequate? And worse, are we spending so much time and money dwelling on a concept of perfection that was never even feasible to begin with? Or do we have the right to have everything that we desire without any compromise whatsoever, thus making the continued search worth every effort we employ?

 I do not necessarily know the answers to these queries. But I will be digging my way to find them because I think they are relatively important questions...