On Perfectionism

Details, Details

The clock on the wall hangs askew; he compulsively realigns it. Fresh bed sheets snapped tightly to the mattress wrinkle slightly along the edge; he strips the bed and remakes it. The page is dog-eared, due to the carelessness of a previous reader; he futilely irons the fibers smooth. Such is the life of the perfectionist.

In business, effective supervisors are invariably perfectionists. A supervisor, whose job it is to ensure quality and productivity, is only valuable when he realizes that big things are made of smaller things; that is, large work projects depend on the thorough completion of smaller, detailed projects. An efficient leader with an insistence on high-quality work is the prized asset of all successful industries.

Details everywhere are managed by perfectionists. Translators of written works, for instance, are simultaneously perfectionists and purists. In translating the Bible into the vulgate Latin, St. Jerome meticulously selected every word with the intention of capturing all the nuances and connotations of each original word. Similarly, professional journalists are often (or, at least, should be) perplexed for days as they seek the most precise word for a particular context. Good writing is precise, and precision requires attention to detail. Thus, in communication, perfectionists are men of detail.

In a different sense, though, all men are called to be perfectionists, as observed in the last words of William Penn: “To be like Christ is to be a Christian.” If Christ was perfect, then should we not also strive to be? By virtue of the universal call to holiness that summons all souls to sainthood, all Christians must be perfectionists of heart. Given the fallen nature of man, we are offered the daily opportunity to become models of moral living. We must “walk in [the Lord’s] presence and be blameless” (Genesis 17:1).

Perfectionists are often disparaged as petty, provincial, and persnickety. An extreme of perfectionism does exist, but a reasonable dosage of the desire to perfect oneself in Christ is healthy. To cast off perfectionists as “too intense” is to deny the universal responsibility to make Christ-like beings of ourselves.

Sadly for perfectionists, however, our goal is unattainable. As the hyperbola longingly approaches but never reaches its numerical limit, so do perfectionists of heart move toward the ultimate limit of spirituality. That limit is Christianity genuinely lived out. Perfectionists are simply wise to live as admonished by St. Paul, so that upon our death, we may claim to have “run the good race, fought the good fight, and kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).