That Perfect Flaw

“You are the quiet spectator in the crowd. You like order, being exact, clarity and purity of thought. Noticing the slightest detail is so natural to you that you can bring order out of chaos. You always strive to do the right thing.”

Born under the Virgo zodiac sign, I’ve been collecting Virgo bookmarks since time immemorial. Written above were the most obvious characteristics of people under the same zodiac sign as described in the latest bookmark I’ve purchased in a famous local bookstore. As long as I can remember, the mirage of inscriptions spells consistency which enabled me to dwell on the notion that Virgo-nians are fated to be called “perfectionists."

Perfectionism in psychology is a belief that perfection should be strived for. Technically the demand for perfection has been constantly causing quite a stir among individuals who possess this kind of complex. Psychologist Gordon Flett of York University in Toronto cited that perfectionists are very rarely obsessive about only one aspect of their lives; they "hate mistakes in everything”. In fact, Flett baptized this particular type of all-or-nothing thinking as the "just right" phenomenon. For a perfectionist, if something isn’t “just right”, might as well call it “useless” and be consequently tossed out to a pool of oblivion.

On the other hand, being a media student just made me more conscious on how ‘perfection’ is depicted in movies. I can closely associate two films that fall in this category: The Devil Wears Prada and The Black Swan which are actually my personal favorites.  

The female lead Miranda Priestly as portrayed by Meryll Streep in The Devil Wears Prada is an epitome of what we call ‘the horrible, perfectionist boss’. She is very hard to please with those overwhelming standards she has set for everybody else to lift their heads up. Most of all, being the editor-in-chief of New York’s fashion bible, Runway magazine converted her into a person who refuses to accept failure.

Actually, this type of perfectionism in Miranda provided her an array of benefits. It made her become a highly-motivated person regardless of the stealthy hatred her staff is having towards her. Nevertheless, she’s still very highly respected. Most of all, her strive towards perfection was rewarded by making Runway, the best-selling magazine in New York.

Contrariwise, perfectionism can be a bitch too and it’s proven true by the movie Black Swan. Natalie Portman portrayed the character of Nina, a struggling ballerina in the New York City Ballet. In order to cope up with her mother’s narcissistic views, she has transformed herself to become the best among others for her to land the lead role in the ballet performance. Blogger Douglas Eby quoted that performing arts such as ballet involve high levels of that kind of devotion to precision and excellence.

The movie strongly gave us a picture on how perfectionism can be very detrimental. Nina tortured herself to be perfect, criticizing every lapse she commits. She desperately wants to play both the White Swan and the Black Swan that’s why she constantly convinces herself that she’s not good enough. Eventually, Nina’s endless venture to perfection caused her death. Evidently,  perfection comes with a high dose of pressure and burden.

On a personal note, the two movies presented the two sides of the coin, thoughts that I should abide to since I am a self-proclaimed perfectionist. Both movies enabled me to weigh the consequences brought by ‘perfectionism’. The matter can result to downsides such as low self-esteem, self-guilt, compulsive behavior, pessimism as well as depression. However, its upshots include being motivated, competitive, a nearness to reaching your dreams, accomplishing things in the most ideal way possible and many more.

Raised in a society filled with imperfections and being born with taunting shortcomings, I consider ‘perfectionism’ as my most precious attribute. Like a true-blue Virgo, I am a very detailed person who carries an impeccable hypercritical disposition in life. Equally, I value excellence and accuracy as my life’s driving forces.

Perfectionism motivates me to excel and to improve my work. With these spontaneous ejaculations of ideas right now, I’m simply afraid that I might’ve written sentences jam-packed with grammatical errors. Honestly, I don’t want to proceed to the next sentence ‘til I become satisfied with the previous ones. It has to be reworked and reworked ‘til it sounds just right, it’s as if precision has become my ticket towards a certain kind of fulfillment. I always have this ‘inner critic’ in me.

Though we are taught to not judge a book by its cover, this line doesn’t really serve as true for everybody particularly for individuals like me. Perfectionists raise higher standards than the rest, trying to demand more from themselves and from others. Perhaps this is caused by the structure in our society that teaches us to do more, be more and have more. We have to try hard to enough to get things precisely right.

While perfectionism can be either good or bad, one thing will always constant----perfection is just an impossible dream.  In a practical manner, a perfectionist should wake up from that dream and set his/her feet back into reality.

P.S: This is my last course log in Psych10. I just thought of posting it since I believe it's worth reading. To my co-perfectionists, cheers! :))

Musings of a Pessimist

It’s haunting my senses. I can’t see it but whenever I look at myself in the mirror, it lurks in the surface. I can’t fondle it but it’s shaking my insides, altering the way I feel. I can’t even hear it but when I start to converse with myself, it’s there. How come such words engulfed with clandestine mystery affect my over-all being? Difficult as it may seem, one must have to face the veracity behind these words: low self-esteem.

Dissecting the word self-esteem, “self” refers to oneself while “esteem” means a high regard over something or somebody. Technically if we put the two words together, self-esteem is defined as how you value and think of yourself. Psychologist Carl E. Pickhardt in his article Adolescence and Self-Esteem (2010) described “self-esteem” as a concept that can be visually examined, physically touched, or directly observed. Similar to notions like ‘intelligence' or ‘conscience', self-esteem is an abstract psychological concept made up to describe part of a person's human nature. It's existence and utility is inferred through actions and expressions considered evidence of its presence.

In addition, he cited that there are two major drops of self-esteem during the route to adolescence. The first drop occurs during a person’s early adolescence with ages ranging from 9 to 13. This is when an individual is starting to separate himself/herself from childhood since he/she is trying to be mature and trying to act older.

Around 18 to 23, better known as the culmination of a person’s adolescence, the second drop of self-esteem takes place. This is when an individual is brazen out by the idea of an impending independence where he/she isn’t up for the awaiting challenges in the future. He/she begins to feel so much disappointment. “I’m already 23 but I’m still jobless with no sense of direction.”

Self esteem is crucial and is a keystone of a positive attitude towards a person’s existence. However, if you added the word “low” to “self-esteem” then that certain positivity can be converted to a poor self-image. What is more, low-self esteem brought by adolescence can be a very weakening experience.

With all the uncontrolled frenzied hormones involved during my adolescent years, I consequently experience an overwhelming rollercoaster of emotions. Physical, mental and emotional changes were swallowing me whole. Due to peer pressure, belch of insecurities were sprouting like mushrooms in my head that I have to prove something so that I’d be accepted.

My self-esteem began to downgrade at the age of 11 or what’s supposed to be the puberty stage. What I am most insecure about is my physical appearance. My forehead was infested by pimples at that time and my guy classmates were tagging me as “ricefield”. Understandably, a feeble-hearted girl like me would often run to the comfort room to cry out my misery. I can still remember growing my bangs in order to cover those hideous blemishes. There’s even an instance when I kicked my classmate’s crotch out of anger since he was endlessly teasing me.

However, the incident which brought the most significant changes in my life happened during my freshmen year. Our whole section was having a year-end party at my teacher’s house. It came to a point where we have to hold an open forum. To my surprise, most of my classmates pronounced their hatred towards me. Almost everybody voiced out their undisclosed resentment over me in which they’ve managed to keep over the whole school year. I can clearly remember some of them crying as they were expressing their hatred. “Am I really this bad?” I whispered to myself.


They loathed me for being a “perfectionist” at most times. They hated my guts and how I lead them during group works while showing too much discontent. They hated me for being too bossy, highly-competitive and discriminating. They hated me for my towering standards. By that incident, I ranked second as the “most despised” classmate.

The experience was so traumatic that I vowed to drop my old perfectionist self and start living my life in a shell. Though I had a more harmonious relationship with my classmates, I just felt that I became an entirely different person. My studies were affected since I barely participated in class. My self-esteem downgraded to a very low point that I was transfigured into being an introvert. I’m stressed over everything up to the point of telling myself that I’m worthless. Since then, I have always doubted myself which is still obvious up ‘til now.

Entering UPV is probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Perhaps I am grateful for being surrounded by open-minded individuals who are actually more considerate and mature enough to deal with diverse circumstances. Even though little by little I’m beginning to get my confidence back, I’m still living a life full of pessimism. I still have this constant battle with my insecurities. I’m not confident with my looks. I’m very careful with my words. I’m conscious with my moves. And oftentimes, I’m wearing this don’t-go-near-me sign in my neck. Even my college classmates have noticed these ugly facets on my existence.

Low self-esteem may be a never ending issue to most people yet I am certain that one can restore himself/herself sooner or later. Half of my life, I spent it disliking myself. But I’m still listening to a small voice inside of me that in due time I could eventually overcome this complex. This 2012, I made a list of resolutions, more like goals. What tops in my list is to SMILE more often since it leads me to a more positive outlook in life. Twelve straight days with constant positive reception, I still have 354 days more. In time, that low self-esteem will be replaced with self-confidence, fingers crossed!

P.S. A course log on my Psych 10 course with regard to low self-esteem. :)

Starting Anew: My Idle Brain Says Hello!

They say, the first words are often the toughest. Toughest in the sense that you have to get the readers "hooked" to your writing 'til they reach the last punctuation mark in your tell-all entry. I know I sound pathetically pointless. Actually what I was trying to say is that I'm having a very difficult time filling up these overwhelming blank spaces cum the idea of starting from scratch. Haha.

I ain't a blog newbie. I already had two petty, nonsensical blogs (one in high school, another one when I was a college freshie) 'coz I honestly find blogging as therapeutic. I miss tweaking HTML codes and choosing lay-outs and designs that'd fit my personality. I miss the feeling of having some readers who'd either bash or admire my work. Most of all, I miss that certain feeling of satisfaction after completing a single blog entry like how a runner crosses the finish line after a tiring marathon.

These days, I often wake up in the morning while having the thought of starting a new blogging career. I miss etching my thoughts and revealing them for the world to read. Now I sound like a real follower of Narcissus. But hey, blogs are meant to suffice one's egocentrism 'ayt?  So I told myself, "I should give it a go!" Like hitting two birds with a single stone, this latest blogging endeavor will serve as a vocabulary exercise as well! Since you're still reading at this point, I guess this shit talk won't turn out as a complete waste. Thanks! *winks!

I know I'm a very bad writer. I'm a far cry from all those clever writers out there who can basically type all their thoughts with so much ease and wit. I can't vividly paint the image of my philosophies for the world to understand without them having invested any amount of contemplation. Nor can I input humor for you to get a dose of entertainment. I'd rather sound defensive right now than for you to expect that my entries will be coupled with much erudition. In the long run, I can foresee that you'd secretly whisper  to yourself, "Why am I reading this crap? It's like chewing a bubblegum with some cow's poop. Awful." It's just that I don't want you to curse me like what the sorceress has done to Aurora. Just think of me giving you a warning sign before giving such distaste for my poor writing. BEWARE!

But what you should expect in this blog is my openness and honesty be that in the most mundane things. I would want this blog to be very personal, injecting all my self-thoughts to life's varied aspects. Basically, this will be an "Anything Goes" type of blog. Hell yeah! Again, just pardon my incapacity to take certain subjects into a higher level. All I can promise you is that I will take a shot into making my entries interesting. Kuha mo?

Most importantly, I'm very much open to CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. So feel free to input your views, okay?

Now I welcome you to my multi-colored realm. Today my blog is born!

See you on my next entry.

Heaps of love from Charlie's missing Angel.  :)