In Pursuit of Perfection – The Grass isn’t Always Greener.

The world we have built is righteously structured around the idea of pursuing perfection. There is no such thing as good enough and there is always something that you can somehow improve. This is the state of the world the surrounds us and the culture that we have cultivated in both our social lives and the business construct within which we operate.

No one knows that more than us at Concept Me, in particular our Chief Vision Officer & Founder, Nina Parvaresh. According to Nina, the French vein in her has embedded the ideal that perfect is inexistent. Being raised with a French upbringing, Nina was automatically challenged by a system that engrained the idea of ‘you will never achieve perfect grades, perfect stature, perfect anything’ in her head from a very young age. Being who she is, Nina took the challenge and tried once and time again to achieve that so-called unattainable perfection.

Even though we already stated that the world we work within is constantly aiming to achieve perfection and trying to gain that ‘sighs in contentment’ moment, this is also a personal habit and tick. Nina as a person admits that she very rarely is content with the results of what she sees. And a lot of that dissatisfaction was previously blamed on the restriction of creativity and the personal touches of clients onto the project. In the industry that we operate within, things are never black or white. They are not mathematical and organized. Instead, they are highly subjective, based on taste, based on preference and based on the emotional story that the space aims to tell.

For example, every project has its own demands. Some blue and tobacco shades would look stellar in one project but horrid in another. Design and its constantly shifting elements are fickle factors to play with. And this constant shifting of things and the changes that surround the design process have added to the pressure of needing to spaces to be perfect. And as someone who is very personally attached and invested in her work, Nina has experienced the self-loathing and emotional toll that aiming for perfection while designing a project for someone else can have on you.

And this is why we are actually writing this. This is what has gotten us to a point in the office where we have discussions like this. This constant process of evolution, change and adaptation has brought interesting insights to the way we do things. For example, the aim now is not merely about judging oneself and worth based on career personal records, but on working hard at finding personal satisfaction and practicing the art of contentment.

Similar to Malcolm Gladwell’s proposal stating that we are capable of perfecting any task if we do it for 10,000 hours, one may need to realize that learning and practicing contentment is also a learned skill…one that we should put effort into and give time.

In our discussion of the subject, Nina and us came to the realization that just because we are not satisfied with something, we shouldn’t assume that the grass is greener somewhere else. It is not about choosing to abandon things and move on to something else. We must learn to be satisfied based on principle. 

Personal satisfaction is about setting certain standards and benchmarks, setting our own standards of happiness and contentment with what we do and living according to them. Personal satisfaction comes from competing with oneself only, comes from avoiding excess comparison and comes from the fact that we must have standards, not be ignorant and live consistently with those standards.

Word to the wise!