The One Thing You Need to Know About Perfection

I must save my baby!

I’m lying in a hospital bed, still seven months pregnant with my second child. Thanks to a team of skilled medical professionals, pre-term labor has stopped.

I’m discharged home, with orders to rest. For the next six weeks, I follow my contraction-prevention medication schedule with obsessive perfection, even setting a 2:00 AM alarm to make sure I never miss a dose.

I must save my baby!

The day after I’m done with Terbutaline, contractions begin again. Jonathon arrives quickly, and he’s wisked away from me amidst babble about “under-developed lungs.”

Each time I visit the NICU to nurse him that week, I think again:

I must save my baby!

Fast forward 18 years.

Jonathon is a senior in high school, taking private pilot ground school, when an amazing opportunity opens up for him.

He’s invited to help fly a private plane from Milwaukee, WI to Monterey, CA. For just the cost of a one-way tickeet to Milwaukee, he’ll gain invaluable experience and flight time.

Jonathon decides “yes,” I purchase the ticket, and Daniel drives him to San Francisco International Airport.

When Daniel walks in the house alone, my old panic bowls me over like a tsunami:

I must save my baby!

I feel certain that I’ve put this tiny infant on a plane to Milwaukee.

I don’t even know where Milwaukee is, and looking at a map doesn’t help in the least — he is practically on the other side of the country!

So, I decide to calm myself by Googling information about the plane.

Seeing this Tinker Toys and duct tape contraption—with a zipper instead of a door— only ratchets up my terror.

Jonathon is supposed to be home in three or four days. But he is delayed due to thunder storms.

By Day #2, I’m not eating.

By Day #4, I’ve quit sleeping.

I seek sympathy from some of the men at church, but they feel nothing but envy. “Oh, I wish I was on that plane!”

None of them understand my relentless anxiety.

I must save my baby!

My compounded worries feel so true that I am shocked when my “baby” emerges from the plane standing 6 feet tall and sporting a fair amount of facial hair.

Jonathon’s big smile and first hug are for his Mom.

And in this moment, it occurs to me:

He really doesn’t need me to “save him” any more.

Later, I realize:

“I must save my baby!” hasn’t been true for a very long time.

The story I told myself — I must save my baby! — was a tool that served me well many years ago.

But I kept reaching for it, out of habit, even when it was clearly the wrong tool for the job.

Perfection is also a tool that can serve us well.

It’s when we keep reaching for Perfection, out of habit — even when it’s clearly the wrong tool for the job — that we risk moving into obsessive perfectionism.

The one thing you need to know about Perfection is whether or not it’s the right tool for the job.

When it is, by all means: use it!

When it’s not, notice. And choose a different tool.