why strive towards perfection and being the best, when the important thing is to be the best that you can be?

Question

i believe that perfection isn't just something that is often beyond near impossible to achieve and maintain throughout, but it is implies it is requirement or standard that people have to aspire and live up to, just because society expects us to do so. isn't doing your very best good enough? and why the need to put pressure on yourself to be something or look a certain way, all for society or the media's interests because this suggests that you cannot manage by yourself, nor can you think for yourself either

to gabe- i was referring to people like you specifically, and i apologise if you believed that that was the case. but there are those who see the concept of perfection and being the best ever as a neccessity that has to be fulfilled, all because, as i just said, society expects them to do so and they are often pressured into doing so

as long as people do their best and put in as much effort as they can, then i'm sure that it will pay dividends

florence, you echoed my sentiment. and yes, its best to have tried, rather than to have not have tried at all

Answer 1

Good question, but being the best you can be and striving for perfection are pretty much one and the same. Perfection is impossible for ANY human, and most everyone knows this. However, how do you truly know that what you are doing, you are doing to the best of your ability? Or better yet, one must consider the best of their ability, and then ask oneself, can this ability be improved? Can it be improved through training, or research, or whatever it is that it might be? Most likeley the answer will be yes.
So then the question is this: What is an acceptable level for this "ability" to you?
The answer: Whatever you set it to be.
In summary, people should not have to live for other people's praise or disapproval. As long as YOU are honestly and truly content with your abilities, and what you stand for, and who you are, then that's all YOU have to worry about. :-)

Answer 2

Perfection is a trap. The first question to ask to resulve the trap is:

Who sets the standard? - I have a big problem with reading and spelling - I have been told by many that im eather thick or lazy, yet I have 2 degrees. Therefore if spelling is your perfection (or part of...) then you would have said that all education is a waste on me.

Is anything perfect? It depends on what you mean by perfect. Plato had his cave of perfect objects, and everything is moving towards them. In this case nothing is perfect but for those objects. There is no cave so no perfect objects.

So in short - yes - just do your best in your own light and if things go wrong just learn from it.

Answer 3

Perfection is an illusion, it is always unreachable, however mindfulness of perfection one way or the other makes people do exactly what they should always do – try their best under all circumstances and in all situations. We often blame ourselves for trying not so hard, for being not able to do well at a time, or not being able to be our best in general, all these thoughts and accusative thoughts, they take away our ability to make decision, learn and move forward. With these thoughts in our mind all our potential flows out: when we blame others for our failure to act to the best of our ability, we throw our charge on to other people, whereas when we blame ourselves for falling short of our own objective, we criticise ourselves thus assuming a divided and an uncertain mind.

I agree with you that we all should very simply try our best, but there is more. I think we all do just that all the time; we try our best whatsoever we do, but normally we do not accept that we do; we give ourselves concessions and keep our hopes alive that next time it will be better. This is right way to think that next time it will be better, it is promise, but not accepting that we have already tried our best is a mistake. My life, for example, has been the best outcome of all the things that happened in my life; it could not have been any better; there could not have been any thing that I could do more or better. However, I think and at time vehemently believe that I could have changed this, I cold have changed that, but the fact is I did not. I have ran this race as hard as I could and that is it, the result so far, i have to accept as the outcome of my best performance.

If at the end of the day we think that we have done our best for today, no complaints, no blames and accuisitions then we can accept the rewards for more graciously and forgive ourselves for more generously for that day; then we can know that tomorrow is going to be another day and it is going to be our personal best, and how good that best would be in comparison with the rest of the world, it is entirely up to us.

Answer 4

I think you are on the right track already. Isn't being your best in itself striving for perfection? There are a lot of facets to this question but all in all being the very best that you can be is all there is to it. At the end of the day, do you go home to face the world? Do you look in the mirror and face the rest of the world or yourself? Do you eat, sleep, bathe, etc with the rest of the world? And the answer to all those questions comes right back to Y-O-U.

And just for your information sweetie, the world, society, etc. CANNOT put pressure on you if you DO NOT ALLOW them/it to.

The key (in my opinion) is to be morally sound, well balanced, do your best to make good, right and just decisions and live your life to the best of your abilities.

Keep on keeping on... very good question.

Answer 5

I like that. Doing the best I can do with what I have. The worse part is the media has us wanting to be like these celebrities when even the celebrities are not as they appear. Even they are striving for a perfection that can only be achieved with make up and creative lighting. Be easy on yourselves folks, you are great.

Answer 6

Surely striving towards perfection by doing the best you can is far better than doing nothing at all. Just recognise your limits so that in the end you are not disappointed, but feel satisfaction in having achieved something rather than nothing.

Answer 7

Perfection is a myth. One needs to aspire towards perfection and then aim to achieve one's goal. One may never reach that goal, but it gives one an aim in life.

Answer 8

It's the same thing, because "being the best" depends on other people's judgement so it is worthless in terms of personal achievement.
BUT if you try to be the best you can be, then you can search for recognition.

Answer 9

i don't know where you get your ideas, but what makes you think that we or anybody else need to achieve and maintain perfection???
in the first place there's a question of whose's standart or definition of perfection and the second question of what makes that definition of perfection more perfect than anybody else's definition??????
what i strive for is to be the best that i can be, while staying true to myself, that is to reach my full potential without giving up the thing that makes me, me!!
so all you need to do is to do your best to be YOUR best.

god bless,
gabe

Answer 10

Whose perfection are you striving for? If it's your own, a laudable goal. If it's someone elses idea of what you should do or be ,forget it. Your life is your own, to be what you can be. If you are happy, then you have success.