Perfectionism

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Anyone else a perfectionist? I certainly am, and it has its good and bad sides.

When I was growing up, my parents had me take piano lessons, which I picked up very easily. I became what most would consider a very good pianist, and could sight-read most anything given to me. However, since high school, I don't play as much, so my skill has been slipping. I notice that since I'm a perfectionist and if I can't be excellent while doing something, I don't want to do it at all. This causes me to not have any desire at all to play the piano any more. I guess that's kind of sad. My wife knows I can play and would like me to, and I have a nice keyboard, but I just don't want to do it because I'm not perfect. Another factor might be that I have tried writing my own music but it is much too hard for me, because I know I'd never be able to get any music to the level of perfection I aspire to. The problem might be that music is so subjective; it's not possible to really tell what "perfect" is.

These days, I am a software developer where things are more black and white. I am able to be highly creative, developing large complex website applications without any problems. I think it is easier to achieve the perfection I look for when doing this sort of work. It also brings me a feeling of accomplishment that just playing other people's music never did. I know I've created something original, which I could never do with music.

I'm quite a perfectionist...

It's a sickness really...

I can be a perfectionist at times and go over the proverbial top.

I may not socially fit in alot of places. One of the natural knacks,
or skills is to figure out software. I do not do webpages, but that has
never really interested me.
I am a Macintosh user and have been able to use(without manuals)
the unorthodox approaches to fixing most problems. A example, a friend
of mine pickedup a 1400c/166/64/2g/FD(fully stocked), and we were fiddling with a PCMCIA card modem. We followed basic stuff that you
are suppose to do. NO LUCK! Then my friend got a 'HARDWARE(PC)
MODEM. Lo-and-behold, after fiddling with obscure modem settings...
IT WORKED, though not Apple approved in methodology.
Their are many unorthodoxed tricks for a Mac that I found requiring
me to reinstall and have nasty firepower to someone elses mac. Keeping
in mind that I have not intent to hurt anyone, and you are a PC only guy?,
I thought to share this natural knack to tinker, explore, and learn the
way one can.

If your harddrive is running OS 9.x, and you harddrive decides to disappear and cannot be found, wipe the hard drive by initializing(there
is a more evil way!......) with your OS 9 Install Disk, BUT.....
GO TO OPTIONS(FORMATS) AND HAVE FUN. I am not giving all the facts
since I really can't explain what I do since I am more of a visual person.

<you can find this option under utilies of the installer, "hard drive setup">

Hey did you reply to the wrong post?

I too, have the awful disease of perfectionism, it really is a blight. It used to shock and concern me how NTs would have a go at a lot of things and not be too worried about the result, 'near enough is good enough' was ok for them. It took me many years to realise they have the right approach.

I'm a 'recovering' perfectionist now.

Misread into your introduction.

Sincerely,
Ghosthunter

I am also perfectionist. This can be a tremendous asset at times or it can slow things down. With experience and self-patience, you learn where it is better to let it go and where letting your perfectionism run free will pay off.

I work with the operating principle of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) so I figure 80% perfect is good enough. that extra 20% is not worth my time as that 20% almost always means 200% more time and effort.

It does vary from task to task though. I strive for 2% perfection when it comes to cleaning my bedroom and 90% perfection when it comes to organizing my eletronic files. . .

I am a perfectionist as well and often fall into the trap of not doing anything at all if it can’t be done perfect. When I was employed at a one-hour photo lab, I spent excessive time color correcting prints, trying to get everything perfect. Often I would be late with customer’s orders due to my perfectionism. The time I would spend would be a complete waste, because 90% of the customers didn’t know what a good print should look like! They were more than happy to pay top dollar for mediocre work. Still, it bothered me greatly handing over a set of prints that could have looked better.

Additionally, perfectionism has bothered me musically and even prevents me from playing guitar. I hit a wall with my guitar playing ability long ago, so I become disappointed when I play the same way I always have. At this point, I haven’t played in about three years. Creating songs has been extremely difficult and out of twenty plus years of playing, can only say that I have made four songs (just guitar and vocals) that were “complete.”

I don’t like being a perfectionist.

Perfectionist when it comes to music - my hard drive gets full of unfinished songs that I've given up on due to being frustrated about some minor detail I can't quite get right. And, with electronic music, I'm constantly at the risk of getting absorbed in details and just tweaking knobs and pushing notes around, in search of the perfect configuration, instead of, well, actually writing a song.

I can only finish something when I manage to avoid this tendency for a while.

I'm a perfectionist in all areas of my life. Everything that I do has to be perfect, or else I won't do them at all. I'm such a perfectionist, that I got angry at myself for spilling hot water onto the counter, when I was pouring my Tea, last week. The only area that I don't feel the need to be perfect, is in the area of Speaking. I'd rather sound like a Londoner, than like the people on NBC, or those boring News Stations, where everybody sounds exactly alike.

I completely understand, it affects me in most areas of my life. I get bogged down and self concious with small things people most likely wouldn't care about.
This is part of the reason why I didn't even start an english essay because I had achieved an A on the previous one. Neddless to say I got in trouble and was told that this was ''crap'' and to get my 'finger out'. So I began to the and I achieved yet again another A.

This plauges me as a musician as I'm prone to making simple blunders, however I'm trying to come to terms with my imperfections as they prevent me from achieving what I desire in reality.

I am definately a perfectionist. It's tough but I couldn't be anything other then one.

Yes, quite perfectionistic. Which is why I'm grateful for my computer and printer because it's so much easier to print something (or reprint, or re-reprint) if I've found a mistake instead of handwriting something and then recopying if I've made an error.

Although sometimes I'm a little more perfectionistic than other times. It depends on if I get lazy, which does happen on occasion.

But I'm a big fan of hitting the Preview button on WP many, many times before I post. (I've done it about 5 times so far for this post alone.)