Anna is the perfect housewife. She takes a great pride in her house. Every day she hoovers, cleans the floors, twice a day wipes the dust from furniture, because so much dust circulates in the air, and her windows need to shine like crystals.
When I come to visit her, I wonder if I can sit on the couch, because I could accidentally demolish the concept of perfectly arranged cushions. Sometimes I feel stupid because my standards of cleanliness are nothing like Anna’s. Sometimes I even accuse myself that maybe I try too little… But there is one thing that worries me… Recently, I ran into Anna and caught her polishing the door handles. I asked why she was doing it. She was surprised and replied that she didn’t really know what to answer, she did it automatically… She admitted to me that she was obsessed with cleaning. She can’t fall asleep when she sees a crumb on the floor, every streak on the window causes her to wash them all over again, and the dust under the cabinets drives her mad. All the time she runs with a cloth, and she has no time to rest, she is so tired, but cannot let go… I asked what her loved ones were up to. And she replied that she basically doesn’t know, because she doesn’t even have time to sit down and talk to them. There’s always something to do, and the house still doesn’t look like she wants it to… I thought, Oh! Perfectionism embraced her with its tenderly tentacles…
Perfectionism has many faces. Sometimes it supports us, and sometimes it leads us astray. So when does the healthy perfectionism turn into unhealthy one?