farhanryu
11-10-2010, 11:38 AM
After having suffered with anxiety and mild depression for a number of years now. I am a highly observant and very deep thinker, as are all anxiety sufferers, and I have come the conclusion that the structure of our society and economy has a large impact on creating angst and depression.
Think it about it for a second. We live in a capitalist world, whereby the best performers, be it academically or in your job are rewarded the most by means of money. Our lives are driven by how well we perform. There is great pressure to be on top of your game day it day out.
Generally speaking our economy is built so that those with money to spend get more return. This is the case in all things, like for instance the rich will get private health care, the rich will have more power to invest and thus make more money, the rich have more power and thus less stress. The correlation between wealthy men and beautiful wives/girlfriends is undoubtedly positive, while the poor will continue to scrape onto what they can get and live stressful lives as a result.
We all yearn to be successful and rich. Our academic system is set up this way. Those with the best results will get the best jobs, hence the most money, that's how employers judge competence.
All of this focus on performance and academic results means we cannot help but have a massive focus on perfectionism. Magazines makes women look perfect, even though they're not. Look at all those girls around you who are bulimic, or those girls who can't stop thinking they're fat. Advertising has painted the picture of perfection, something that is humanly unattainable, but our society demands it. The force of perfectionism is all around us if you open your eyes to it.
So to sum up the picture, capitalism rewards high performers. There is a massive social need to live the high life. The materialistic life. To get to these levels of success one must achieve and perform highly pretty much all the time. Thus throughout our lives we have a huge focus on perfectionism.
And of course, this unrelenting need for perfection is going to create problems. Depression, anxiety, suicide, anger, resentment, bitterness and all the rest of it.
But not to worry. I will end this on a good note. There is a certain 'secret', if you will, that many don't know. This secret is that we are at our most productive and most high performing when we don't seek perfection.
Think about this for a second. Imagine you have a project to do, and this project has many tasks within it. Each task is dependent on the other. If you approach it with the intention of being remarkable or excellent, or awesome, rather than PERFECT, then imagine what you could achieve. If you approached it trying to have every aspect of it absolutely perfect, think how it would go. Since perfection is unattainable, imagine how angry you'd be WHEN (not IF, but WHEN) you don't manage to get it perfect. Imagine the anxiety you would feel if you missed a couple of minor things on one task. Those that approached the task with the intention of being excellent can still achieve excellence, but the perfectionist has already failed.
I believe that for a lot of anxiety sufferers (not all, but many) have a problem with perfectionism and procrastination. If you look at yourself and decide that you will not try to ever be perfect, but rather be excellent, or even just decent, then imagine how much you could achieve. Imagine how glorious a life you could lead if perfection was not an objective.
It's important not to blame yourself for trying to be perfect, that is partly due to the capitalist nature of our social structure, advertising and economy.
I will end this with a great quote by Susan Jeffers: "if you're not making mistakes, you're not growing."
Think it about it for a second. We live in a capitalist world, whereby the best performers, be it academically or in your job are rewarded the most by means of money. Our lives are driven by how well we perform. There is great pressure to be on top of your game day it day out.
Generally speaking our economy is built so that those with money to spend get more return. This is the case in all things, like for instance the rich will get private health care, the rich will have more power to invest and thus make more money, the rich have more power and thus less stress. The correlation between wealthy men and beautiful wives/girlfriends is undoubtedly positive, while the poor will continue to scrape onto what they can get and live stressful lives as a result.
We all yearn to be successful and rich. Our academic system is set up this way. Those with the best results will get the best jobs, hence the most money, that's how employers judge competence.
All of this focus on performance and academic results means we cannot help but have a massive focus on perfectionism. Magazines makes women look perfect, even though they're not. Look at all those girls around you who are bulimic, or those girls who can't stop thinking they're fat. Advertising has painted the picture of perfection, something that is humanly unattainable, but our society demands it. The force of perfectionism is all around us if you open your eyes to it.
So to sum up the picture, capitalism rewards high performers. There is a massive social need to live the high life. The materialistic life. To get to these levels of success one must achieve and perform highly pretty much all the time. Thus throughout our lives we have a huge focus on perfectionism.
And of course, this unrelenting need for perfection is going to create problems. Depression, anxiety, suicide, anger, resentment, bitterness and all the rest of it.
But not to worry. I will end this on a good note. There is a certain 'secret', if you will, that many don't know. This secret is that we are at our most productive and most high performing when we don't seek perfection.
Think about this for a second. Imagine you have a project to do, and this project has many tasks within it. Each task is dependent on the other. If you approach it with the intention of being remarkable or excellent, or awesome, rather than PERFECT, then imagine what you could achieve. If you approached it trying to have every aspect of it absolutely perfect, think how it would go. Since perfection is unattainable, imagine how angry you'd be WHEN (not IF, but WHEN) you don't manage to get it perfect. Imagine the anxiety you would feel if you missed a couple of minor things on one task. Those that approached the task with the intention of being excellent can still achieve excellence, but the perfectionist has already failed.
I believe that for a lot of anxiety sufferers (not all, but many) have a problem with perfectionism and procrastination. If you look at yourself and decide that you will not try to ever be perfect, but rather be excellent, or even just decent, then imagine how much you could achieve. Imagine how glorious a life you could lead if perfection was not an objective.
It's important not to blame yourself for trying to be perfect, that is partly due to the capitalist nature of our social structure, advertising and economy.
I will end this with a great quote by Susan Jeffers: "if you're not making mistakes, you're not growing."