The curse that is 'Perfectionism'

Wikipedia defines perfectionism in two ways - Philosophical and Psychological. The philosophical definition is as follows: 'Perfectionism is the persistence of will in obtaining the optimal quality of spiritual, mental, physical, and material being.' But this is not the one which has provoked me to brand it as a curse. So lets now move to the culprit, which is the psychological definition. It goes something like this: 'Perfectionism, in psychology, is a belief that perfection can and should be attained. In its pathological form, perfectionism is a belief that work or output that is anything less than perfect is unacceptable. At such levels, this is considered an unhealthy belief, and psychologists typically refer to such individuals as maladaptive perfectionists.' WOW! So I can add another adjective to my resume - 'Maladaptive Perfectionist'.

Have you ever, just once in your life, done something and thought, ' I could have done it better!'. Well.. If you are a normal human being with two hands, two legs, two eyes and a functioning brain, I am sure you have. Now how about feeling this way for every small thing that you do like, a phone conversation or making a list. Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to my world.

While everyone around me thinks that its great to be a 'perfectionist', like most people, they only look at in the philosophical sense. If only for a day they could live my life, they would realise what an absolute suffering it can be. Thinking about every small thing , not just thinking but it obsessing over it and coming up with thousand versions of how it could have been done is like overloading one's brain with the task of two. But sadly with the output of half.

There was a time when my 'perfectionism' was not OTT the way it is now, but that was a long time ago and if you are thinking that I would now list down the symptoms, then you are wrong pal, as I haven't figured them out themselves as yet. All that I can do for the greater good of humankind is warn the reader that, if you pride yourself on being a 'perfectionist' ..well that's great, but just not let it develop into the psychotic one ..OK!

In the end, I would like to conclude (rather abruptly) that I would rather be a happy imperfectionist than an unhappy perfectionist.

PS: Guess what I was thinking all the time while I was writing this post..' God! My writing is so cliche.. I need to better it.. Are the commas and exclamations at the right places.. Should I re-write this line.. Should I..........'

Here I am..

is the first thing that came to my (confounded) mind as the title for my very first post. Well, I have been thinking about starting a blog for a long time but it took me quitting my job, a rainy Mumbai morning, one terrible back-ache and the fear of insanity to finally get to it.

You must think that I am being poetic or philosophical with the title of my blog but if there was a more apt title to a piece of writing after what Jane Austin called as 'Pride and Prejudice', it would have to be the one that you read on the top of this page. Because thats exactly what I am ..CONFUSED! I don't remember being any other way ever since I could comprehend the word 'confused'. My mind is always in the multi-tasking mode and when I say multi-tasking I do not mean it in a positive way. There are always a thousand thoughts running in my brain like a marquee. So even now as I am writing this, my brain is telling me to upload my resume on job sites or make breakfast or watch TV. There is never a moment of respite from this.

I often wonder how easy life must be for people who have a clear idea of their goals and plans in life. And here I am with my defected piece of a brain, jobless, without money and without any idea of where I will be in a few weeks from now. So before my dear friend could lead me to change the address on my CV to that of a mental asylum, I decided to vent it out. So here I am.. and will always be whenever I feel at peril of losing my confounded mind.

PS: If you find my writing a little incoherent, you know whom to blame!