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The intolerable rise of perfectionism

theguardian.com

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Re: The intolerable rise of perfectionism

#41

Post by danielam »

electrograv wrote: post #13

This paragraph, which seems to summarize much of this article’s position, seems quite dangerous: > Perfectionism is a personality trait rather than a mental health condition. There is no World Health Organization diagnosis code for perfectionism and it is not listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It can fly under the radar and masquerade as the pursuit…

"Certainly, pathological corruptions of perfectionism exist"

I submit that that is exactly what perfectionism is which is, for all intents and purposes, a variation of scrupulosity. What you may be describing is something like a desire for high standards or a general love of growth.

Re: The intolerable rise of perfectionism

#42

Post by xtf »

I've seen "What Happens When A Night Owl Is Forced To Live Like An Early Bird"[0] yesterday and wonder how it correlates with this.

It basically says that 27% of the population are night owls and are in an evolutionary sense our natural night watch and when forced into a daytime schedule, always tired.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kZVbE_coSA

Re: The intolerable rise of perfectionism

#43

Post by JadeNB »

tjoff wrote: post #8
pygy_ wrote: post #2

A perfectionist is someone with more exigence than talent. By deeming yourself a perfectionist, you openly state that you do not meet you own standards. Resolution lies on either end, depending on how possible/practical it is to improve a given skill.

I don't think I've met too many untalented perfectionist, I'm sure they exist though (feels like an unfortunate combo). I just feel talent is orthogonal to perfectionism.

> I don't think I've met too many untalented perfectionist, I'm sure they exist though (feels like an unfortunate combo). I just feel talent is orthogonal to perfectionism.

Don't these two sentences contradict each other? Taking 'orthogonal' to be loosely synonymous with 'uncorrelated', if they were so, then you would expect to see roughly the same number of untalented perfectionists as talented ones.

Re: The intolerable rise of perfectionism

#44

Post by dogprez »

tw1010 wrote: post #5

I tend to become much better at things a lot quicker if I just ingest a lot of the stuff (books, code, etc) and then spit out a mountain of it, instead of obsessing over making each and every thing I produce perfect. Perfect isn't even an unchanging state. The better you are, the higher your standards become.

I aspire to write a novel at some point despite the fact I haven't done much writing. When I did try to write prose I found it was much more different that writing emails for work. With email I obsess about being clear and concise, editing the same few lines over and over again. Everything I read about writing, like Stephen King's On Writing, suggest you need flow and to create a rough draft in order to get anything good. So, in order to get perfection you have to (temporarily) embrace imperfection.

Re: The intolerable rise of perfectionism

#45

Post by tsumnia »

s-shellfish wrote: post #17
electrograv wrote: post #13

This paragraph, which seems to summarize much of this article’s position, seems quite dangerous: > Perfectionism is a personality trait rather than a mental health condition. There is no World Health Organization diagnosis code for perfectionism and it is not listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It can fly under the radar and masquerade as the pursuit…

Everything is a mental health condition these days. Honestly I think the mental health care industry is getting nervous over how complex, diverse and non-trivial it is to understand minds. It's easy for the field to operate on the premise 'but these poor people, we are trying to help them!'. It's at the least, a bit absurd to be hypercritical over every little detail of thinking, acting, behaving, processing, etc and…

> It seems more that one has to be cautious with who one displays those characteristics towards because it can easily provocate insecurity in others, unintentionally.

This sentence seemed to irk me; because at what point does someone have to police themselves to ensure they don't "hurt someone else's feelings"? My generalization is a bit crass, but that's how this sentence came off.

Re: The intolerable rise of perfectionism

#47

Post by jhoechtl »

While the title touched me, less did the article itself.

I thought it would be more about working conditions which at least for me and with control and checks everywhere in place leaves less and less space for humans to err, favouring perfectionists.

Re: The intolerable rise of perfectionism

#48

Post by Noos »

electrograv wrote: post #13

This paragraph, which seems to summarize much of this article’s position, seems quite dangerous: > Perfectionism is a personality trait rather than a mental health condition. There is no World Health Organization diagnosis code for perfectionism and it is not listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It can fly under the radar and masquerade as the pursuit…

If it's the journey, it's not perfectionism. Perfectionism is all about results; a person wants the results in their life to be perfect according to the means they define it as, which requires control. The moment you realize you cannot control things and can only enjoy the ride, you are no longer perfectionist. You're negate the actual thing and are calling it perfectionism when it's not, because perfectionism always has the elements of results and control, two things this "healthy" perfectionism cannot have.

Please don't define what you have as what it is. There are too many odd people who define what they are as on the spectrum and talk of bullshit like neurodiversity when people legitimately suffer and have serious negative consequences in their lives from it. Perfectionism ruins lives and warps relationships with people precisely because its not about striving while realizing you can't ultimately have it. That's just what normal people do, try and do the best they can while realizing a lot is out of their hands.

Re: The intolerable rise of perfectionism

#49

Post by emaginniss »

ekianjo wrote: post #35
s-shellfish wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is a mental health condition these days. Honestly I think the mental health care industry is getting nervous over how complex, diverse and non-trivial it is to understand minds. It's easy for the field to operate on the premise 'but these poor people, we are trying to help them!'. It's at the least, a bit absurd to be hypercritical over every little detail of thinking, acting, behaving, processing, etc and…

> Everything is a mental health condition these days. It's practical because if you have a condition, you can be sold a bunch of products and services you did not need in the first place! Progress. More seriously, the explosion of conditions not based on anything tangible (pseudo, unvalidated criteria) and supported by health professionals trying to capitalize on it is the real issue. It becomes a serious issue when…

And everybody has cancer because oncologists love treating patients and drug manufacturers love selling chemo drugs. If you start thinking that way, almost every profession can be seen under a negative light.
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