One hot summer evening, while Mrs. Brown was straightening her house, a spider called Ms. Mary Muffet spun a perfect web containing absolutely regular polygons. Ms. Muffet was not immediately aware of the excellence of her work. As she waited for her prey, she finally saw the perfect symmetry of her web. No web had ever been spun like this before. She had finally achieved perfection.
Naturally, none of her children had the same exacting eye for perfection of symmetry in a web. So obsessed was she with her virtuoso performance that she spun a parallel web so that she could observe the perfection of the first web, from all possible angles, without disturbing it. Just at that moment, the web caught a fly. Usually, this would be a good thing for Ms. Muffet since the tensing of the web was like ringing a dinner bell. But the fly was messing up perfection, and an angry Ms. Muffet would have none of it. She approached the terrified fly, who knew his doom was sealed. But then, impossibly, she cut him free to fly away. The fly was incredulous, yet grateful.
Then a couple of mosquitoes upset the web, and were freed by Ms. Muffet in a similar fashion. All night she fixed onslaught after onslaught. Every bug that hit the web was cut loose and the web repaired to perfection.
Early the next morning, Mrs. Brown came into her kitchen and noticed the spider’s web in the corner of the ceiling. She went to move it, but noticed that the spider was dead. In her night of toiling for perfection, Ms. Muffet had starved to death.
Mrs. Brown pondered for a moment before sweeping away the once perfect web. Then she turned her attention to the dishwasher, and wondered why no one in the family could ever seem to load it correctly.
A lot of what we’ve been talking in this series on family systems is about anxiety – how it permeates families and organizations and how it manifests itself in reactivity. We’ve talked about how we deal with anxiety, either by thinking through it or reacting in what Friedman calls a “reptilian” way.
Reptiles (and spiders, for that matter) are not generally cuddly, playful creatures. They are very serious. Notice, for example, how you can make a horse prance or a dog dance, but you can’t really play with a snake or have fun with a spider? Anxiety brings out the reptilian nature in us, and one of the most reptilian of regressions is the trap of perfectionism.
Perfectionism is really about fear – anxiety about the world around us. Here are some of the reptilian/arachnid symptoms of perfectionism (see if these fit you):
- Fear of failure. Perfectionists often equate failure to achieve their goals with a lack of personal worth or value.
- Fear of making mistakes. Perfectionists often equate mistakes with failure. In orienting their lives around avoiding mistakes, perfectionists miss opportunities to learn and grow.
- Fear of disapproval. If they let others see their flaws, perfectionists often fear that they will no longer be accepted. Trying to be perfect is a way of trying to protect themselves from criticism, rejection, and disapproval.
- All-or-nothing thinking. Perfectionists frequently believe that they are worthless if their accomplishments are not perfect. Perfectionists have difficulty seeing situations in perspective. For example, a straight “A" student who receives a “B" might believe, “I am a total failure."
- Overemphasis on “shoulds." Perfectionists' lives are often structured by an endless list of “shoulds" that serve as rigid rules for how their lives must be led. With such an overemphasis on shoulds, perfectionists rarely take into account their own wants and desires.
- No sense of humor. In their reptilian, manic state they become very serious about getting things done.
- Believing that others are easily successful. Perfectionists tend to perceive others as achieving success with a minimum of effort, few errors, emotional stress, and maximum self-confidence. At the same time, perfectionists view their own efforts as unending and forever inadequate.
So, you’ll see a perfectionist work like mad to achieve some goal, hoping for recognition by someone (a parent, a teacher, a boss, etc.) as a means of gauging their worth. At the same time, the paradox is that the harder they work, the less healthy they become – they are starving to death.
Take the story of Mary and Martha. Now this story has a lot of meanings and, depending on your perspective, you could identify with either. Jesus shows up at the house and Martha automatically moves into perfectionist mode – her worth is bound up in what she can produce. Jesus hasn’t asked for anything to eat, but he’s going to get it whether he wants it or not (ever been in that kind of house?). Mary, on the other hand, sees an opportunity to relate to Jesus and doesn’t squander it. Everyone would have expected her to be in the kitchen, too (she’s a woman, after all, and in that culture it would be scandalous for a woman to be seen and heard in such a situation).
Martha, in true reptilian fashion, reacts out of her anxiety – Jesus, tell her to come and help me! If the meal goes bad, her thought process goes, it will reflect badly on her, she’ll not meet Jesus’ approval, she’ll feel horrible, try harder….you see how the cycle goes.
What’s “better” according to Jesus, though, is Mary’s willingness to sit and listen – to relate. Mary doesn’t really care that much about dinner – she knows what’s really important. Perfectionists have skewed goals and often focus intently on unimportant things – meals, clean houses, perfect grades – as a way of not dealing with their feelings of anxiety.
Perfectionists believe they are in control – but the reality is that they are caught.
The issue of perfectionism begs the question – What’s really important? Sure, we all want to do our best and that’s good, but at what point does our desire for perfection block out what’s really important – the relationships and self-differentiation that ultimately bring us to health?
Ms. Muffet starved to death because, in her reptilian perfectionism, she forgot what was really important – her own health. The purpose of a web, after all, is to capture food (not to look at). What’s the purpose of our lives? To make perfect grades? To keep an immaculate house? To be the top of your profession? To make your kids perfect?
No, our purpose is to love. That’s the heart of the gospel. We are loved by God so that we can love others. We are blessed so that we can be a blessing. God doesn’t expect perfect performance, but perfect love – love for God, love for others, and love for ourselves. We don’t have value in God’s eyes because we do everything perfectly – we have value because God created us out of love and for the purpose of love.
Perfectionism is really a form of love hunger. If you or someone you love is caught in that trap, what can you do?
First, realize that the only person you can manage and take care of is…you. If you are starving from perfectionism, you need to realize that recognition and validation generally does not come in proportion to your work. You can spend those extra hours at the office at the expense of your family, you can yell at the kids to keep the house clean to your standards, you can do all the extra credit problems but – at the end of the day – no one really cares that much.
Do you believe that all your manic work and busyness is going to matter that much in the end? I’ve done enough funerals to know that people who live to work don’t leave a lot behind them except bitterness and regret. As the old saying goes, no one on their death bed wishes that they had spent more time at the office.
Second, don’t forget your purpose. You are a human being, not a human doing. God loves you as you are and wants you to grow into that love. We do that not by cranking out more righteous activity, but by simply sitting at his feet. You may have gotten the message as a kid that you were responsible for the weight of the world, that everything depended on you, that you had to perform flawlessly in order to be loved.
I’m here to tell you today that that’s a lie. You are loved with an everlasting love by the God who made you – not so that you could be a worker drone who simply does God’s bidding – but as a person of sacred worth in whom God desires to live and work and love.
I think this message is especially important today as we welcome new members and confirm ten of our young people. As Methodists, we believe that the Christian life isn’t so much about how perfectly we perform, but how perfectly we learn to love Jesus, love others, and even love ourselves. The purpose of our lives isn’t to be perfect, but to be perfected by the grace and love of God.
This is Aldersgate Sunday, too—a Methodist holiday. On May 24, 1738, John Wesley, who was himself the ultimate perfectionist, went to a meeting on Aldersgate Street in London where he heard someone reading about God’s grace. It changed everything for him. He realized he could never be perfect by his own efforts, but that God loved him anyway and was leading him on a journey toward becoming more and more like Christ. Wesley realized his sins were forgiven, his life was made new.
As we share in the liturgy of our baptismal covenant, let’s all remember that we are forgiven, too. Let us go on to perfection—perfection in love!
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Ms. Muffet story adapted from "Caught in Her Own Web" by Edwin H. Friedman in Friedman's Fables.
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