Category: happiness

Perfectionism: how to’s

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In another post I was talking about one of the reasons I have slowly and constantly come to depression. It’s my sense of perfectionism. There are a lot of words ending in “ism”: we borrowed this suffix from the Greeks and the Latins. If I search for its meaning, I stumble upon the Dictionary, which defines it a suffix used in “the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence, etc.“. There’s criticism, egoism, intellectualism, humanitarianism, instrumentalism, photojournalism, fraternalism, etc. In medical terms, it denotes “a medical condition or a disease resulting from or involving some specified thing” (from the medical dictionary). Wow, a disease, even…

Just when I thought that perfectionism was a strength in somebody’s character, I realised it can be either way, and for me it was (it IS) more of a “condition”. I won’t call it weakness, as opposed to strength, because I can see how perfectionism can serve us well in many situations. In my case, over time perfectionism has become a hindrance. Why? Because, unless something was perfectly executed, it wasn’t worth spending time on it. I am talking about everyday habits as well as work practices or sport. I won’t put makeup on unless I have a nice dress, matching shoes, and a good hairdo. I won’t clean the kitchen after cooking unless I clean it to the very last corner; once I start cleaning there’s no stopping me. But because it’s such an endeavor in my mind, it is rare I do cleaning every day after cooking. another example: I will procrastinate writing a report for work, because I can already envision the whole picture as being complex and a lot of work to execute perfectly. So I leave it to another moment. And I postpone by telling myself there are other easier tasks I can do before I get into that bigger task. So I start making calls, updating my calendar, add customers to my CRM, etc…

Oh, yes. Procrastination. It goes hand in hand with perfectionism. A podcaster’s account on her perfectionism felt so familiar when I listened to her 7-minute story. Listen to her: it’s really good. Elly Varrenti. So, immediate gratification is partly the reason of our constant dissatisfaction. If we don’t get it now, we don’t want to do the effort. And, even if you do succeed, you won’t be happy anyway. Failure is considered by me failure, in a negative way; but what if I start looking at my results, albeit not perfect, as positive? Elly says: “There’s good failure and bad failure […] as there’s a difference between passion and ambition, winning and accomplishment. […] The secret to happiness is rising from the ashes of disappointment, humiliation, aching inadequacy, and just getting on with it“. Like Winston Churchill said: “If you are going through hell, keep going“. Thank you Elly for quoting Churchill. He must have been a very interesting and wise man. He is also the author of the line “Never, never, never give up“. And I shan’t!

A bit of diversion that took me to Churchill and to the Australian correspondent to ABC, to remind myself that now I now know one strategically important thing: I am a perfectionist and I can recover from it. I am already working on this, and believe me: it is a super difficult task.

Oh, and we haven’t spoken about OCDs…. oh well, let’s tackle it in another post.

Recipe for Happiness

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Happiness to me is the conditio sine qua non in life. It’s not very clear what happiness is, and how we measure it. I have been trying during my life to understand what makes me happy and what makes me sad, and I have associated often a place to a happy moment, or maybe a happy moment to a place.

I often wondered if my gauge for happiness was the same as in other people, or to all people. The same goes for pain. Let me explain. When I have had moments of full bliss, happiness, plenitude, abundance, or whatever we want to label it, it felt amazing, and nothing more could make me feel better – I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. If I think of such moment in the past, my memory brings me back to when I was in New Zealand with W. (the love of my life, haven’t talked much about him yet); it was July 1 2005, and I labeled that day as the best day of my life. I have had other best days before and after, but this one in particular stands out. We had ventured into a farmland the day before, we had parked our rental Britz van near a sheep farm, had made a lovely breakfast in the morning, with lots of things from a local store called …. Mmm can’t remember (Hackleberry’s maybe?); we did our first sheep shearing of our lives, took some lanolin straight from the sheep’s cut wool, and ventured off into this wild NZ land full of magnificent colours, rivers, etc. When I told W. that it was my best day, we were staring together at the vast spaces of New Zealand and we were closely wrapping in each other’s arms amazed with the beauty of that land. That was a happy moment that I will always remember. A moment that lasted many days actually, and months, and years, as W. and I were traveling around the world.

Now, when I think of the happiness of another person, I wonder if he or she would feel the same level of happiness, and if so, in which conditions. I mean, was my feeling of happiness on July 1st the highest a person can feel? Does a woman somewhere else in this planet, at this moment, feel the same level of happiness doing what she does love most? Could I be more “happy”? If so, how? The point is actually not whether I can be happier, but how I measure my happiness compared to others, and if my state of bliss staring at the sheep farm is the same bliss another person, with another character and history, feels when driving his/her favourite car. Is it the same happiness a grandmother feels when she spends one day with her nephew? Is it the same bliss Elon Musk feels when he sees his first shuttle take off? Or Armstrong and Aldrin when their foot first touched the moon? So, is happiness relative or absolute? Do I need my neighbor’s Ferrari to feel the same amount of happiness he feels when riding it? And is my joy higher than his, when I am hiking a mountain, or I am kitesurfing in a turquoise waters? Do I need to envy other people’s happiness? Cause that’s the feeling I get when I watch TV.

Same for pain : was my surgical pain last year the highest a man or woman can endure ?

I am still looking for a way to gauge happiness levels. Because if it were measurable, we could possibly help each other being happier. No? It’s a difficult task. I am open to suggestions.

Back to happiness, why am I saying this today? Because I am preparing for the month of June, when I am going to reduce the intake of Fluoxetin (Prozac). I have a meeting with my psychiatrist (the jolly Congolese guy) on 4 June and I will ask him if he is ok with me reducing the antidepressant. I want to do it during summertime, when it’s nice out, the days are long and sunny, the air is warm and everything is alive. I don’t want to do it in autumn, which per se is depressant to me. I know, many people love autumn, I don’t like it, despite the beautiful colours (Quebec has some of the best landscapes in the fall, check it out, I have been there, wow). It’s been 6 months since I started taking antidepressants, and I feel good, very good. I think I can start move away from them. I am scared, I admit, because I can’t tell how much my good state of mind is due to medicine at this very moment, and how much is due to my self-training (meditation, routine, enjoying work, doing sport, yoga, buying new plants…).

So I want to pack in as much as info as possible on myself, and in what conditions, when and how much I am happy. During my preparation to less Fluoxetin, I am appreciating some down moments, like the little “fight” I had with my friend M., which brought me back to negative moments. It was good to be reminded what bad moments feel like. I managed to revert those bad feelings into positive, by thinking of something I like, by not letting her bad mood affect me, and by being more “egoistic” towards my own feelings (translation: I value my own state of being more that hers, what’s important right now is that I feel good). I stay away from negativity. It helps.