Aiming for perfection

I used to accept nothing less than perfection. Perfect speech, perfect work, perfect grades, perfect happiness were my obsession. I now realise perfection is an utterly empty concept. 

Achieving perfection requires knowledge of the achievement (you can’t claim an achievement if you don’t know you’ve achieved it), which means seeing the perfect achievement as belonging to you. This knowledge can only be gained by seeing the perfect thing. This means perceiving the perfect thing perfectly (e.g. at all angles and at all times simultaneously). However, this type of perception is impossible because we view the world from a unique point of view. Kant says that how we view the world limits what we see. An obvious example of this limitation is we cannot view the world from another person’s point of view, which is a requirement of perfect perception. It follows that we might achieve perfection but we will never know it!! Perfection is an unknowable goal.

I think aiming for perfection is unfair and cruel because you will always fall short of something you cannot know. It is much better to try your best and remain open to learning from what went right as well as what went wrong.