Life as a Perfectionist

I think I’m going to start a new ongoing topic on my blog, and it will be: Life as a Perfectionist. You see, I happen to be one of those. I believe that there are certain types of personality, each with their own characteristic shortcomings, and mine happens to include that constant pressure to transcend the mediocre, to be incredible at all times, to do things just right every time. No task is so mundane that it can’t haunt the perfectionist with the demand to be performed flawlessly. Yes, life can be quite complicated as a perfectionist. Worries seem to find abundant fertile ground in the perfectionist’s mind, whereas other personalities can’t be bothered to reserve much room for the gnawing doubt and desire from which such worries sprout.

Perfectionistic thought processes (which I consider to actually be much less deliberate than such a phrase would suggest), regardless of what they are about, tend to follow the same general pattern, and also threaten to end in similarly disappointing ways, not that any outcomes are predestined. This pattern is as follows:

-I need to do ________

-Not only do I need to do ________, but I need to do it exceptionally well

[After some thought and/or effort, the reality of things dawns on the perfectionist]

-It’s either impossible or impractical for me to do ________ exceptionally well, so I’m just going to not do it, and sulk instead

[or, if circumstances allow]

-I think I can actually make ________ into a masterpiece, and darn it, I will!

I’m sure this description sounds familiar to many of you reading this, if not for everyone in at least one instance of their lives. Anyway, this ends the first installment of the fascinating world of Life as a Perfectionist!

P.S. I’m not sure why those funny gray lines are showing up. I just wanted to indent!

I’m anti-made-up-words!

It annoys me when people make up words unnecessarily and then think they’re speaking intelligently. For instance, although I’ve heard both “impactful” and “orientate” used many times in academic settings, and despite the fact that dictionary.com actually recognizes these “words”, they are actually just made up, but more importantly, they sound dumb and are unnecessary! According to Paul Brian’s “Common Errors in English”, what people actually mean by “impactful” is already handled very nicely (which is to say, conveys the meaning without sounding stupid) by the words “effective” and “influential”. In my Organizational Psychology class, our grad student teacher repeatedly used the word “orientate” or even “orientated” (which I think is flagrantly erroneous), and I cringed every time but didn’t have the heart or the guts to challenge him on it. In actuality, “orient” works just fine, for, according to englishplus.com, “orientate” is at best “a back-formation used humorously to make the speaker sound pompous. The correct word is the verb orient.” As a perfectionistic blue personality, I take note of such seemingly minor things as made up words, plus paying attention to words is good practice for going into law

Also, in regards to the prefix “anti”, I learned something interesting in a New Testament class the other day: in the original Greek, “anti” denotes not outright opposition as it does in modern English but rather a substitution. Thus, when the scriptures (those originally written from this Greek perspective, anyway) speak of “anti-Christs”, they’re not strictly talking about some sort of person who is diametrically opposed to Christ’s divine mission as is usually portrayed in movies and sensational History Channel programs, but really are referring to any idea, person, or object which offers itself as a substitute for the grace, mercy, and redemption offered through the Atonement of Jesus Christ on conditions of our repentance. The fact that this Greek notion of anti-Christ is not necessarily an embodied being does not make it any less spiritually dangerous, and in fact makes it more prevalent!

This is a great example of why interpretation of scripture matters, and I find it somewhat problematic when people dismiss the issue of translation, instead insisting that scripture as it exists in the King James Bible is perfectly translated, thus leaving us with a complete and fully elucidated canon of scripture. That’s the feeling I got with the guy on Wednesday’s CNN-YouTube Republican Debate who kept shoving his Bible into the screen and echoing the mantra “Do you believe every word in this book?”; I admired his enthusiasm for the KJV Bible, but thought he was pushing for a too-literal interpretation of the Bible as we now have it. However, I thought each candidate who addressed the question answered well, and I saw much merit to each answer. Like Romney, I absolutely believe that the Bible is the word of God “as far as it is translated correctly” (Articles of Faith 1:8) - the caveat about translation is not to withhold complete acceptance of God’s revealed word, but to acknowledge that the Bible we now have came to us through the generally well-meaning but nevertheless fallible efforts of scholars and committees. Without equivocation, I can say that when it is “translated correctly”, the Bible is an incredibly rich source of doctrine and inspiration, and that absolutely includes the Old Testament, which I think many Christians, including myself and my fellow Mormons, are inclined to overlook because it is so hard to understand without a firm background in the relevant cultural, religious, and historical contexts which allow for accurate translation.

Anyway, I think this post has gotten long enough

Some thoughts on rationality and personality…and -ality

Although I have an active mind and frequently have interesting ideas, I don’t often commit them to writing because I’m a fairly moody and capricious guy. This confession nicely introduces this post’s topic, which is: the relationship between personality and rational/emotional orientations. You see, for all my deep thoughts (I think they’re deep, at least, but I have a very high opinion of myself), I have a more emotional orientation, such that cold, logical arguments in writing, particularly those directed at the unfeeling expanse of cyberspace, do not appeal to me as much as direct emotional communication with real people. My personality is such that I am inclined towards emotional and experiential knowledge and communication, and find writing and logic unnatural and potentially awkward. This is not to say that I think the logical orientation is less valid than mine, although most of the logically-inclined don’t seem to share the same goodwill for the emotional orientation I’d love to be proven wrong though

Also, what’s up with that “-ality”, eh? I interpret it as “characteristics/state of”, but I’m not sure. I ought to look up common suffix definitions some time. After all, English does follow some rules, doesn’t it?

An Important Shift in my Social Paradigm

It really hit me today: unless I change the way I think about dating, I’m going to be a sad little single guy my whole life, or at least for years to come. First a little background. Recently, I’ve been reading “The Color Code” by Taylor Hartman, which outlines the very interesting personality color theory which, despite not having any psychometric research to back it up, is nevertheless incredibly accurate and compelling. So, I’ve been reading what Dr. Hartman has to say about my main personality color, blue, and I’ve been amazed at how well his description fits me. To sum it up, blue personalities are motivated by intimacy, and they care so much about sincerity and being good rather than just seeming good that they tend to have perfectionistic expectancies for themselves and others. Wow, that is me! So anyway, I’ve been really unsatisfied with my social life for quite some time because I can’t seem to meet people who reach the pinnacle of awesomely cool perfection that I now recognize as being an impossibly high expectation. As it turns out, if you don’t want to have friends, you can either not work to become sufficiently cool, or you can be like me and consider yourself too cool to have any friends. Neither one of those scenarios is good, but fortunately neither one is an inescapable death sentence either. Realistically, I can’t develop close friendships with everyone, because quite naturally there are people with whom I can develop friendships more readily than others, but for those people who I’ve traditionally viewed as “Yeah, he/she’s cool, but he/she’s not quite perfect enough”, I think I ought to jump at the opportunity to get to know him or her better. I used to be the guy with the childlike twinkle in his eye and a zest for life, but I feel like I’ve become a jaded anti-socialite; I’d really like to turn that around!