The Depression of the Obsession of Perfection

Typos! Grammar flaws! Misspells!

Oh my!

They’re there. Always watching. Always mocking. Just waiting for us to slip up so they can laugh at our imperfections. They haunt us. By night, by day. They can never be ultimately destroyed. Only vanquished for a time. But there will always be more.

Yes, those terrible mistakes within our writing. They form in many different ways. Maybe we are suddenly struck with inspiration and our fingers are flying across the keyboard, not stopping for anything, just write and write. We are so excited. What an amazing idea that was! We merrily go back to read our writing, that spark of inspiration that we just know has to be a masterpiece…then we see them. Typos…all over the page. Every other word with that nightmare-inducing red squiggly line blatantly pointing out our fail in spelling. Punctuation marks missing all across our sentences. That inspiration is gone. And then comes the depression.

We want so desperately for our writing to be perfect. We want it to flow, be entertaining, draw people in, and, probably most importantly, be perfect, no flaw in sight. But it never works that way.

Those devious little mistakes always show their ugly heads all across the pages. It is infuriating. You spend ludicrous amounts of precious time fixing them only to find more and more. It is just…depressing.

I am a perfectionist. That does not mean I make everything perfect, that means I want everything perfect but usually fail making it so, which drives me up the wall. I am so accident prone, constantly finding horrible mistakes all throughout my writing. But I am obsessed with making it perfect. Unfortunately, there is a thing about being a perfectionist. In a perfectionist’s eyes, nothing is ever perfect. As hard as we try, we are never satisfied. To be honest, I do not enjoy being a perfectionist one bit. I so often wish I could just not worry so much about everything, not let every mistake bother me. But it is not so. Perhaps it  is a good thing though. At least I have motivation to clean my writing up and make it the best I am capable of. But, when I realize my writing really just needs to be crumpled into the trash, it depresses me.

Still, my perfectionist ways always wins over the depression. Instead it turns into an obsession.

Those evil grammar flaws, typos, and misspells shall not prevail. We will vanquish them and let them have no place upon our pages.

It is a battle, fellow writers. A battle we shall not lose. Our opponents are tough. Sneaky. Persistent to the point where we think we cannot go on.

But we can!

Draw your weapons. Take out that pencil, that pen, that keyboard, and, above all, that red pen, the very thing those mistakes tremble at the sight of.

We will be victorious!

Chaaaarge!!!