Thursday, October 16, 2008

I just don't get it...

I am not a perfectionist. I don't aspire to be a perfectionist. I don't understand perfectionism.

I've tried. I know many people who have this tendency. I do sometimes admire the outcome of their perfectionism. But watching a perfectionist engage in their process is overwhelming to me.

I'm an anxious person by nature...and I'm very empathic. So when a perfectionist gets going, I usually can feel the anxiety just radiating off of them. Are there perfectionists that are zen?

Last night, I just got annoyed with a perfectionist. She's a part of my small group and we had been working together since about 7 p.m. At 9:30, I announced that I was expiring and had to go home. But she needed to run the whole thing through again.

I was probably to tired to feel her anxiety. I was definitely too tired to not drawn a boundary. And, surprise, surprise, my boundary helped 3 of us escape.

I know that we have only about 3 weeks until our concert, but, seriously, I have a lot of things that are important to me, including giving my body the rest it deserves. We are going to be wonderful anyway...and since we are inviting friends and family to the concert, it really doesn't matter if we suck, they are honor bound to tell us we were brilliant.

4 comments:

Cody Bones said...

Um excuse me your nummy majesty, what concert? Do tell. Are you singing, playing a instrument, what is the dealio? What did I miss?

HistoryGeek said...

I'm in a choir called The Distaff Singers. This is my first year. We have one concert a year (the first half is a traditional choir formate, and the second half is sort of a musical revue). If you'd like to take a trip out to CA on November 1st, the tickets for the concert are just $15!

Aravis said...

As a perfectionist, I know how annoying it can be; I try to restrict my perfectionism to my own self. Probably why I still have friends.

Good for you for setting those boundaries! *G*

goodcouragegal said...

Um, I try to be a zen perfectionist but I don't think I'm very good at it. (I guess that makes me not a very good perfectionist ... LOL)