Throughout the past year, I’ve been in a relationship. My partner was not a person; he was perfection. At times, he was my champion, my closest ally. At other instances, he was my nemesis, my destroyer.

I used to think perfection was… well, perfect. I thought it powered the world. The first time I thought otherwise was while reflecting on my A minus in freshman year metals and welding class. I realized that although disappointing at the time, it enabled me to challenge myself more, and losing a 4.0 right off the batt allowed me to risk taking more difficult, engaging courses. It was like the first ding on my new car, giving me the liberty to enjoy the ride. Aiming to be flawless can be a positive force, but occasionally it actually inhibits success. Sometimes, we have to dare to fail. It is only by failure that we grow.

Last spring, I looked at myself and wasn’t happy with what I saw. In my mind, it wasn’t perfect; I needed to be better than what I was and better than everyone else- in my academics and my physical form. I have always admired people of action, and incorrectly applied this to myself. My reasoning was that I didn’t like myself, so I would change. This drove me to thinness. By July, I had lost my period, my hair, my energy, my happiness, and my sense of self. But all I could see was that I lost some weight, and that made me feel superior to my prior body. However, I never thought I was ‘good enough’.  With only 91 pounds under my skin, I still perceived it as more to lose. I didn’t have a goal weight; I just decided that less was more and perfection was around the corner.

What I didn’t realize was that my perception of perfection was distorted, and therefore impossible to achieve. I was working both for myself and against myself: a contradiction that life cannot maintain. It took me some time to come to terms with reality, and even longer to admit this to others. But I’m getting back on track now, and I have conquered perfection.

We do not need perfection in any of our relations. He is detrimental to our world. Instead, we need functionality. We need things that work, that accomplish, that move on to the next problem, that can be satisfied by our flawed, yet beautiful world, and still strive to make it better. Hard work is important, don’t get me wrong - aiming high is essential, but shoot too high and you may get lost in the clouds. Our lives take place down here, on the muddy ground, and while we clean it up we must also accept the reality that there will always be specks of dirt left over. And that’s okay.