Perfectionism, though a good trait always creates a weakness for a perfectionist, especially when the perfectionist is working in a very demanding environment. There is always a conflict in balancing between perfectionism and accomplishment. Being a perfectionist myself, all throughout my life till now I have been going through this conflict. A typical example that I could feel the stress was during my semester examinations in my college days. Before the exam I used to read every chapter with a thorough understanding and diligence that at the end of the day I wouldn’t have completed the syllabus. As I entered into my career and in the state of growing towards higher level, this trait brought actually a bad name. The work used to be demanding, aggressive timelines and I used to sit hour long to complete the task with near perfection. End of the day I got back home satisfied but then in deep in the mind the thought always run through, am I doing right?
Recently one of my friends shared a story and I was inspired reading it and I could see a reflection of myself in that. Here it is:
A German once visited a temple under construction where he saw a sculptor making an idol of God.
Suddenly he noticed a similar idol lying nearby.
Surprised, he asked the sculptor, “Do you need two statues of the same idol?”
“No,” said the sculptor without looking up, “We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage.”
The gentleman examined the idol and found no apparent damage. “Where is the damage?” he asked. “There is a scratch on the nose of the idol.” said the sculptor, still busy with his work.
“Where are you going to install the idol?”
The sculptor replied that it would be installed on a pillar twenty feet high.
“If the idol is that far, who is going to know that there is a scratch on the nose?” the gentleman asked… The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the gentleman, smiled and said, “I will know it.”
Yes, for a perfectionist, every job irrespective of any importance matters most. No wonder Martin Luther King has rightly quoted “”If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.”
The desire to excel is exclusive of the fact whether someone else appreciates it or not.
“Excellence” is a drive from inside, not outside.
Excellence is not for someone else to notice but for your own satisfaction and efficiency…
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