The Story Behind I Am Not Perfect
One day when I was eight, my class played a trivia game. This particular instance had the class split in two, and my team lost. When that happened, I knew what was coming next, and I tried to hide it. But I couldn’t. I started crying, as I always did at that age when I lost. It wasn’t a temper tantrum; I was so upset that I couldn’t help but start crying. I didn’t understand why. All I knew was that no one else did that.
Jump ahead to when I was twelve. In German class, my teacher used a series of videos to help us learn, and one assignment we had was to act them out, showing that we’d learned and understood the material well enough to recite it from memory. I got the part I wanted the least, and that set me off again. I started crying, but I was old enough to know how to hide it (mostly). I still didn’t understand why I was that way. I just thought it was because I was upset and couldn’t help it.
Both times were because I was upset, although I didn’t understand why I was so upset. Why could everyone else get over it so much more easily than I could?
Jump ahead to present day. I’d long since identified that I clutched memories that involved me making mistakes far longer than was healthy, and no one likes making mistakes. But I identified a bigger problem than just not liking to make mistakes. And what helped me do that was my job.
A lot of software development is trial and error. It’s not fun when you get partway through coding something, only to realize that the entire design, the backbone of what you were doing, has a problem and has to be torn down. This kept happening to me throughout the year, as I went from one volatile component to another (this itself was a mistake). Every time it happened, I got angry, I got upset, and I got depressed. Thanks to a friend of mine, the next time this happened, I identified something so internal to me that I hadn’t noticed it: my perfectionism.
When I am forced to face the fact that I’m not perfect, I get upset. I get angry, and I get depressed. This has been going on constantly throughout my life. The two anecdotes are only two of the many examples of this happening throughout my life. Now, finally, I can identify it.
I wrote I Am Not Perfect as a constant reminder to myself that I am not perfect. And that’s okay.
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