Tag Archives: perfectionist

Do I Need More Pippi in My Longstocking?

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Our only similarity is that we were both born with red hair. From the first time I met her, she was my idol. She is fiercely independent, unconventional, playful and unpredictable. Her pigtails fly in the wind, her grin widens and her freckled face flushes, as she races from one adventure to the next with her best friends: her horse, her monkey and the two children that live next door to her at her home, Villa Villekula. 

Pippi Longstocking- full name Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Longstocking- is the figment of the imagination of Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. Recuperating from an illness, Astrid’s daughter asked her mom for a story and named the main character Pippi. Initially rejected by publishers, the books have since been translated into 76 languages and made into television shows and movies. 

As a little girl reading the books, my eyes would widen, and my heart would race; how exciting to be so free! Little did I know that my personality had already evolved, as observed by JC*. She quickly realized that, rather than inheriting her easygoing nature, my tendencies for perfection and order were thanks to my dad. 

She knew she had her hands full but guided me along with such patience. By the time she received the call that I was in the nurse’s office by second period on my first day of junior high, she was resigned to the fact that I was a bit different from other children. Apparently, I did not see the humor in being handed one of the first computerized class schedules, having only a few minutes to arrive before the bell rang and being mistakenly assigned to the boy’s bathroom, rather than a classroom. 

In my efforts to be a bit more spontaneous, I have made some major strides: 

  • I visited a model home and did not rearrange anything. 
  • I polished my fingernails a completely different color than my toenails.
  • On a whim, I changed my grocery shopping day from Friday to Thursday.
  • I double snoozed my alarm.
  • I impulsively ate four Triscuits with lunch, rather than my usual three and did not worry about biting cracker number four precisely on its horizontal markings.   
  • I went on a trip without any pre-planning, waking up each day and deciding on my next adventure. Wait a minute; that was a friend of mine that did that, not me!

Oh, to be a bit eccentric! What fun it would be to make paper airplanes out of my to do lists with my avant-garde pals. Regrettably, I am only able to participate as a spectator, realizing that the only flow I can go with is if it has first been documented on an Excel spreadsheet. 

At first, I thought that living vicariously through others was unfortunate. Then I realized that family and friends are as fascinated with my quirks as I am with theirs. They loosen me up, I keep them on track and together, we walk through life one unique step at a time.

*JC:  My lovely mom and my best girlfriend. She received the name “JC” years ago – her initials – back when I hired her to be my interim secretary, and I did not feel comfortable saying “Any messages, Mommy?

Author’s Note:
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Perils of a Perfectionist

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One quick glance around each room and I can size up what needs to be done. The pictures on the wall are a bit crooked and the pillows are not aligned correctly on the sofa in the living room. The chairs around the dining table are not pushed in at the same depth. In the kitchen, the spices are not in alphabetical order and the candles are not standing straight up in their holders. Just when I roll my sleeves up, intending to get to work, my friend takes me over to the side, puts her hands on my shoulders and reminds me that we are on a Parade of Homes model home tour. 

Sometimes it’s great to have a keen eye for detail and a determination to always strive for excellence and sometimes it’s a pain in my (hopefully physically fit?) posterior. Luckily for me, I was blessed with a combination of both my parents’ personality traits. My dad’s obsessive, work ethic and drive for success, along with my mom’s easygoing, go with the flow attitude, has kept me from falling off the “obsessive, compulsive cliff.”

Early on in life, I realized that I would need to take control of my tendencies. Riding that bucking bronco of flawlessness, I had to learn to lasso that energy into a healthy focus. Being aware of who I am and actually cultivating a relationship with myself made the difference. It gave me a comfort level that the rest of the world did not see. How could I possibly begin to exude confidence if I didn’t like myself? In time, I learned that the secret connection between me and my psyche was actually a simple process: just stop, look and listen:

  • Stop: I take a couple of minutes each day to close my eyes and imagine how I want my life to be.
  • Look: I try to objectively observe how I am progressing and what I might need to tweak. 
  • Listen: When alone, I compliment myself out loud and let those few short sentences spur me on. 

My relationship with myself is a humorous one. Together, we chuckle at my ability to detail the heck out of even the smallest task. We giggle at the way I prompt myself to hum a tune as a reminder not to review a past mistake over and over again. We chortle at my micromanaging tendencies, practiced under the guise of providing useful information to anyone at any time, whether they want it or not. And we have a good laugh over whether I can finish reading an article before getting up to fix something out of place on the other side of the room. 

I realized that in order to move ahead and see the big picture, little by little, I had to let go of the minutiae of everyday life. This has given me a bit of a carefree feeling so that I now only document 41 percent of my life on Excel spreadsheets (down from 92 percent) and just last week, walked past two crooked welcome mats, outside of neighbor’s homes, without the need to straighten them.  

We are all a work in progress. I now understand that I need to embrace the odd duck in me and realize that I cannot totally change who I am at this point in my life, but I can work with myself and not against myself to create the best imperfect perfect person that I can be.