HUMANS 101
Perfectionism Is Anxiety Masquerading as Discipline
Why it’s time to stop fetishizing achievement-oriented pathology
As a recovering perfectionist, I feel the need to call a spade a spade — perfectionism isn’t a virtue. Somewhere along the line, we put it on the cultural pedestal and never looked back. Average achievers and procrastinators gaze at perfectionists with longing envy, wondering what day in school they must have missed where they, too, would learn how to compulsively achieve, check off their entire to-do lists, and function on four hours of sleep.
Grind culture itself is a direct result of our cultural fetishization of perfectionism. It’s the reason we brag about how overworked and overscheduled we are and how little sleep we can function on and the reason we roll our eyes with contempt whenever anyone mentions dirty words like “self-compassion” or “rest day.” (For more on this, check out “A Meditation on Not Being a Dick to Yourself.”)
Our envy and glamorization of perfectionism merely indicates how grossly we have misunderstood it. Here’s the truth: Perfectionists are not compulsively overachieving as a liberated expression of discipline and creative drive. Quite the opposite. Perfectionists are achieving as a solution to a self-worth issue. Perfectionism is…
