
Wesley was a perfectionist. He took pride in making sure everything he did was done to the highest standard. Whether it was his work, his hobbies, or even his relationships, he wanted everything to meet his expectations perfectly.
In all of his activities, Wesley put in everything he had, always striving to do better. People who met him were always impressed by the level of dedication he had towards perfectionism.
Despite his endless drive and motivation, he often felt overwhelmed by the pressure he put on himself to do everything to perfection. This caused most of his interpersonal relationships to suffer. When his girlfriend told him she could no longer take his obsession with perfectionism and left him, Wesley decided that the price he was paying for perfection was too high.
He accepted that he could let go of his need to always be perfect in every facet of his life, and made a conscious decision to accept his own imperfections, and equally as important, those in others.
Wesley soon discovered that, as he allowed himself to be more forgiving and understanding of his mistakes, he was able to enjoy life more and to focus on the positive aspects of his accomplishments. He was also able to build better and more meaningful relationships as he learned to accept himself, flaws and all.
He learned that perfection doesn’t have to be the goal. He accepted that it is okay to make mistakes and that we all have our own unique strengths and weaknesses. The important thing, Wesley realized, is to find a balance between striving for perfection and recognizing our own human imperfections.
Written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, where Linda has given us the word “perfection.”
I have a confession to make. I am still struggling in my recovery from a fractured hip to maintain the energy to write posts in response to prompts. So I opened up an app on my iPhone called ChatAI. It leverages an artificial intelligence technology called ChatGPT. I instructed the ChatAI app to “Write a story about a perfectionist.” This post is the result. Could you tell as you were reading it that it was written by a chatbot?