The latest “aha!” moment in counselling was the realization of how pervasively destructive a drive for perfectionism can be.  I’d never quite taken that all in before; at least not to that extent.  Not only is it impossible to attain, along the way it removes any chance of feeling good about anything.  Nothing is ever good enough, and mediocrity is unacceptable.

It’s like labeling a child a “genius”.  It instantly takes away any chance for the kid to excel, or exceed expectations.  The focus goes from the 95% correct to the 5% wrong, and wondering why it happened.  They never again have the luxury of not understanding something – failure to comprehend, and to do so quickly, is seen as laziness.  They’re a genius, right?  So of course they’ll understand if they just put in more effort, try harder, and simply pay attention!

This is going to require a lot of thinking about in the next few days.