Breaking My Habit, Day 31: Flaws

Perfectionism is a double-edged sword: it can drive you to the limit of your abilities, but it can also damages you severely if the target is not achieved.

I believe everyone has, to some degree, a perfectionistic side in him (or her). I'll take myself as an example. While most of the time I'm a very practical / pragmatic person, there are occasions where I am a perfectionist:

- I stopped writing in my blog (the one before this) because I'm not sure what to write in it (I wanted to have it all figured out since the beginning)

- I stopped my resolution of doing pushups everyday because I missed 1 day of it (I wanted to do it 100%)

- I stopped playing FF VIII because I feel disappointed when I failed to get 1 character card (I wanted to have ALL the cards)

Damn you, Seifer!

Yeah, those are silly examples, but that's just how my perfectionistic side works. Whenever I see flaws in my project, I tend to abandon it, just because it's not perfect anymore. 

Truth be told, I actually break my own rules during these 40 days project. Three kinds of incidents, to be exact:

1. I ate a bread in between meals: my friend persuaded me by saying it's not an "unhealthy snack" but a "healthy, home-made bread" :)

2. I play 'Dragon Flight' for several days: not a flash game, but still the kind of games that I tried to stay away from, the one that rewards you with daily gifts and involves a lot of mindless grinding

3. I wrote nothing yesterday: normally I wrote something but late to finish it, yesterday I wrote none

As usual, my perfectionistic side kicks in and tell me to abandon this project. But no, I've seen this pattern occurring too many times.  This time, I stick to my project and keep moving on.

I now realize that the problem lies in my mindset. I set the bar at 100%, not allowing even 1 single mistake. When I eventually did make a mistake, the whole project become a failed one. Why pursue it further when it's already failed? There is no sense in doing something so hard when you already considered it a failure.

It's a dangerous mindset to have. I dismiss the bigger, successful portion of my project and instead focus only on the smaller flaws. Not only stupid, it's also chock-full of ego. Who am I to think that everything I do must be 100% right? Even nature makes mistakes!

Blue eyes are the products of mutated gene

I believe there is a virtue in acknowledging your flaws and try to live with them. This is also why I left this page blank. I initially intended to write something on it today, but I changed my mind. It will be a testament to any flaws that I have (or will have) done during this project.