The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
Confucius
Perfection: seemingly a group of letters arranged to depict some meaning of greater importance, but this time, it’s far more than that. The chase for perfection is this tiny thing that weighs you down, like carrying a huge rock in your pocket all the time. Nobody really warns you about that, neither in the beginning nor during the journey, but everyone comes with questions or, in the worst-case scenario, some allegations at the end.
It starts off simple, you know, just people saying be better or be more polite, things like that, to impress others and be acknowledged by certain people, certain groups that you probably won’t even see again after a certain period of time. But then it turns into this rule inside your head that you enforce on yourself over and over again.
And the obviously painful part? The shame that kicks in whenever you mess up or slip.
I wake up every day thinking that this might be it; the day everything will change for me. But soon enough, I find myself going over all the ways I messed up yesterday, or even practising what to say so I don’t sound stupid. It lowkey feels like I’m always editing myself before I even open my mouth, making sure I come off right. That whole routine feels urgent, like if I could just get everything perfect, then I’d finally appear friendly in front of people I like, or people I want to like me.
But this is the worst part that I wanted to highlight: always cribbing over the past that you cannot actually change. What’s done is done now. All you can do is minimise the further damage by actually learning from your mistakes and implementing all the lessons you’ve learnt (did you actually?).
The thing is, it doesn’t work that way. Trying so hard to be flawless actually smooths out the parts that make you real; the rough edges and all. It flattens you somehow, in ways you probably can’t even notice along your journey of trying to be perfect. I think that’s the harsher part: how it pretends to help but ends up making things worse.
Admitting you’re not perfect is the first step (well, according to me at least). You have to say it out loud, even if it feels weird. The relief comes in small waves, but it’s kind of big too, like an earthquake inside. It releases the tension from chasing a standard that’s impossible anyway.
Some days I wonder if everyone deals with this, or if it’s just me overthinking it.
What trying to be perfect actually costs.
Trying isn’t like those big moments in stories where everything clicks right away. It’s more the quiet grind, you know — staying up, figuring out mistakes, and then pushing through the next day anyway. I think that everyday push is what really matters, the stuff that takes real nerve. Like picking up the phone to apologise when you’re nervous, or applying again after getting rejected. Those repeats sound boring on paper, but somehow they build this real strength inside you over time.
People see the failures too, sometimes even mock you for them. Just a friendly reminder that this world can be a cruel place to live in (debatable though). When you keep trying, messes happen where everyone can watch, and you have to sort them out alone later. That wears on you, gets exhausting before it pays off. The tiredness hits, or the embarrassment, that sting no one else notices. But it’s not about being flawless.
What comes from it is something better: handling fixes, admitting faults, starting over without much fuss. It pulls at those inner bits about right and wrong, stretching them out bit by bit. Some say it’s too much trouble, maybe not worth it, and I kind of wonder about that too. Still, the pull to try again stays there.
The shape of a trying life.
The way a person struggles through life creates an appearance that makes them look different from their actual self. A man may show unpredictable behaviour because he might first show kindness and then return with more intense giving. He shows two distinct ways of expressing his apologies, delivering them through awkwardness before he makes real changes.
Human existence reaches its fullest potential through two essential elements that people require to develop trust in their relationships: in their work, their friendships, and their romantic lives. The process of trying to accomplish something creates new connections between people. The process transforms weak commitments into active traditions that people continue to follow. The process brings down those who feel superior. The process creates a way to teach people who experience strong emotions through their most intense outbursts. The process requires you to experience emotions that you would rather avoid.
The person who tries to succeed learns how to carry their sadness without losing themselves to it. They develop the ability to learn from mistakes through practical experience, teaching themselves along the way. The effort you put forth, your repeated attempts at apology, and your everyday attempts to improve; these elements together form the fundamental foundation for a trustworthy existence.
While perfect things are made safe by their completion, or by being seen as finished, the person who keeps trying has the community as a witness to their attempts. The person trying to do something is never truly finished. Yet the fact that they remain incomplete, still awake to their responsibility for their actions, is what keeps them accountable.
When this person tries, they come to the table and place their hands forward, even when their hands shake. That is what allows others to witness them and perhaps try themselves.
Rather than perfecting something, the person who tries completes their work through effort, through hours of labour, rather than through the simple achievement of success. If the world only contained a perfect statue, there would be no sound and no warmth.
What the world is truly searching for is the sound of people trying to rebuild themselves in public. The sound of individuals rebuilding themselves in front of others is messy, painful, and beautiful. It is the sound of civilisation slowly rebuilding itself through each honest attempt.
But who knows, maybe one day we will finally become the person we see in the mirror, instead of merely living as a reflection of ourselves.
Discover more stories on Her Campus at MUJ. More articles by me coming soon at Vaibhav Chaudhary at HCMUJ; he who watches the world and its miracles very closely, noticing what slips between all those moments, between those infinite possibilities of what all can happen.