I took my bike out on an unfamiliar route yesterday. I’d thought I had plotted out a *perfect* route to get to my destination—perfect being defined as completely safe and entirely removed from traffic. It didn’t quite work. There was an unexpectedly inaccessible green space, an unknown street where a known street should have (“should have”) been, and a major arterial route (with a separated bike lane, granted) I was not at all prepared for.
As my perfectly mapped out plan landed on a pile of countless discarded plans, I felt a very specific kind of emotion: the sadness of failed perfectionism, a tactic that did not deliver on its promise of safety.
(I looked to see if the Germans have a word for this; didn’t find one, so I used Google translate to come up with “Traurigkeit über gescheiterten Perfektionismus.”)
Planning was so much a part of my arsenal during a very chaotic childhood. I would write up timetables for my Lego schoolchildren as a way to bring order to my little world. I kept lists as a way of soothing my nervous system. Developing and re-developing routines provided me with gut-level comfort.
No matter how much I am able to show myself that this tool of comfort simply cannot keep me safe, I feel it still so much ingrained in me. The sadness I felt yesterday at a plan gone awry made me seriously wonder if I’ll be 87 years old, still tooling around with a core belief that, as long as I study options and plan meticulously, I can ensure my safety.
On the other hand, I have done such a good job of dispelling other perfectionist and harmful beliefs from my childhood, maybe this one little holdout isn’t the worst thing in the world.