Book Review: "Perfecting Ourselves to Death"

I'd read this book a year or so ago, but when packing up my bookcase I came across it and decided to give it another read. I'm glad I did.

As the title of this blog alludes, I suffer from this particular ailment, although I like to think I'm in recovery. I can relate to author Richard Winter's quote of Paul Tournier when describing a fear of making mistakes--a common symptom of perfectionism.

"Fear of making the wrong decision makes it difficult to give up any options that are available....perfectionists want to do everything, but choose nothing, and so never get started. Living means choosing one thing rather than another, but these people will give up nothing, and so lose everything."

For me, a black/white mindset makes it tough to see life's middle ground. Life is growth, and growth is often messy--lived out in the tension between black and white. It's not that I think I'm able to be perfect; I'm not sure any perfectionist would think they could be. It's just that a "wrong" choice risks missing out on the "best" option, and so even a "good" option seems like loss. Life becomes avoiding future wrongs and regretting the past mistakes...

Winters also does a great job at reaching the heart of perfectionism's utility: control. The idea is "if I can be perfect, and make the situation perfect, then there is no risk that I'll get hurt". The natural result of working through perfectionism is facing that you're finite, not in control, and learning to live in the tension of the unknown. It's a process of openness, vulnerability, and facing disappointments as inevitable but not fatal.

Winters writes that the antidote is contentment...a functional trust that Jesus is good and in control, and that we don't have to be. Contentment is hard for perfectionists, as they are always dissatisfied and pursuing more. Giving Jesus control is a scary proposition.

Toward the end of the book, Winters quotes The Velveteen Rabbit when describing the process of becoming spiritually and emotionally mature:

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender...
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. " You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

The choice is pretty simple, really. We can choose to remain in the toy box in our packaging--protected from being broken and scratched and bruised and scarred by interactions with the world. Or we can let Jesus and others love us and in the process mature and be come Real.