Project completed on June 26, 2023
“At its root, perfectionism isn’t really about a deep love of being meticulous. It’s about fear. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of disappointing others. Fear of failure. Fear of success. ”
— Michael Law [emphasis added by me]
This story is more personal than the others. All of them changed me for the better. I learned something along the way in each one, but this one specifically helped me with an issue I had for a very long time, something I like to call perfectionism-induced procrastination.
I call it perfectionism-induced procrastination because it immediately sets the scene for what I think of perfectionism. I think of it as something detrimental, not something you say as a weakness disguised as a strength because I genuinely believe that perfectionism is not the superpower that people think it is.
At my worst, I would avoid studying for exams or starting projects because I was afraid that if I tried and didn’t get the best results, it meant I was inherently flawed and someone else was better. I wanted to be the best at everything, and that was impossible.
To be clear, this wasn’t debilitating like it is for some. I could think these thoughts and offset them with the task at hand to study or work half heartedly, but I couldn’t do it reliably. It wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it was still an issue.
I discovered the Junior Breakthrough Challenge through an email from Khan Academy, a site I use for studying physics. I embarked on this project without a mentor just before exams. With less than a week to complete it, I could only render the animation once, without a proper preview.
The animation was secondary to me. I spent a lot of time perfecting the facts and information for the video, but the 2 minute limit meant I had to cut a lot of content, including discussions on gravitational lensing, time dilation, radio lobes, and black hole jets. I even had to trim a detailed segment on the information paradox to make room for Hawking Radiation.
How tight the timings for the script had gotten to fit all the content
After the first render, I saw a lot of things that could have been improved in the video and thought about withdrawing from the competition so that no one would see my half baked work. In my eyes, it’s an all-or-nothing situation. I want everything to be perfectly perfect with the perfect conditions, or else it’s not worth attempting. This way nobody including myself will ever think about what might have been.
The issue with this sort of thinking is that nothing is ever perfect; the perfect opportunity will never arrive. I just need to start.
The project’s completion had its challenges. The mistakes in the video shone through the cracks like flowers on pavement. At first, I was hesitant, but I chose to share it with the world: A call to arms against my perfectionist self.
And I wouldn’t say I liked it, but I had beaten my perfectionism-induced procrastination for the first time. It didn’t feel like something that I couldn’t fight anymore. Soon after this project, I found it easy to get studying for my exams. It was liberating; I no longer had the struggle of starting something or finishing work that would undoubtedly be imperfect.
Looking back on this journey, I realize that I have come to a new way of seeing perfectionism (obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this). In the past, I never would have allowed this text to be put out on the internet because I wouldn’t consider it worthy. Fortunately, I have changed. And here it is, unfiltered and unapologetic, with all of my not-so-perfect steps taken to exact perfection. Just how I like it.
