Toastmasters Speech #2: Pursuing Perfection

How many people here have memories from kindergarten?

Great, you will probably understand where I am coming from.

I was born nerdy, loud and with an uncompromising love for art. The combined force led to me being exceptionally good at one thing- colouring outside the lines all the time. I wouldn’t listen- I was drunk on it. The adults were so annoyed, it was actually affecting my grades in Kindergarten and I was lagging behind-despite everything.

Jokes apart, that was my first stint with imperfection.

In an Asian household, there’s no pressure to be perfect but… the worth of a child is very much measured in accomplishments. That’s all you hear, all that sticks

It was intrinsic, achieving anything below perfection implied you were indolent and, therefore, don’t matter enough. This counted your grades, your behaviour, your looks and other things. Perfect, I told myself, nothing less. Achieving the highest possible goal, despite the odds, will make everything will fall into place. Anything less is either a distraction.

So in the nine schools I attended-I always found that delicate balance between nerdy, mean and nice.

Each time I reached the shore of my perfect self, I swam through a sea of anxiety. There was no map. And so, under the radar, my fear of imperfection began to rise like a storm. I chose to ignore it over and over again-

Until one day, chaos took over. I wondered… What if I failed this time? What would it be like? Halfheartedly- I let go- and I did not pick myself up right away. I closed up to my peers, I let my grades drop, and very willingly developed some terrible coping mechanisms. I became unavailable myself.

Suddenly, I was back on the radar.

In public opinion, I was failing at life. But to me… I did everything right for very long and yet wasn’t perfect long enough. More anxiety. I clung to it. As you function through anxiety, you not only dumb yourself down, you actually ‘numb’ yourself out. You magnify your failures, you discount your achievements- ultimately you are a threat to yourself. And this can go on as a cycle for as long as you like.

My heart was in absolutely nothing. I feared life itself. I was never completely there.

I undertook substantially large tasks- I completed my Masters, got the job I sought, met new people and even got a lot fitter. This silver of tough love I showed myself helped me access my resilience. And I learnt that the first step to pick yourself up is to simply show up. It’s not aiming for grandness but just bringing all of yourself where you go.

What one person thinks isn’t worth mentioning about himself may save someone else from the worst decision of his life. That’s how perfection works- when seemingly unrelated things fall into place and create magic, from nothing. It cannot be predicted or even measured or controlled. And for that, you have to show up, over and over again. You may make some perfect things but never meet any perfect people. People are not things. People are inherently flawed. They fall in love too reluctantly, react too hastily and are not always equipped to understand us the way we’d expect them to. Despite these differences, people have collaborated to create ice-cream, reach Mars and fill the internet with cats- all very perfect things- with room for improvement.

While spring cleaning last summer, I found a coloring assignment from preschool. A few tiny diagrams illustrating the life of a minuscule seed from germination to a skinny plant- in four miniscule squares. It was an absurd info-graphic, that someone thought may be of interest to a child gone wild on crayons. And yet, I did go wild on it with colours. And my mom said- why couldn’t you just be like the other kids? At that point I knew, I was dangerously close to perfection.

I’d like to end with a quote from a beloved poet Beau Taplin

Do not call me perfect, a lie is never a compliment. Call me an erratic, damaged, and an insecure mess. Then tell me that you love me for it.