Perfection VS Goodness

Previously published on www.yellowbrick.me

I was thinking today about stress and anxiety and our never ending search for perfection from ourselves and those around us and came across this quote by John Steinbeck: “And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good” (East of Eden). Steinbeck’s words stopped me in my tracks, as they usually do.  But I am an English teacher and a writer and I am often left speechless by the language of the greats.  What if we taught our kids not to be perfect, but to be good?  What if we could somehow got away from the competition, from the endless hunt for excellence, and could teach them that being good was more important than being better?  How might that look?  I think the world would look as it does through the eyes of a first grader.  I think it would be beautiful. 

I was watching television with my daughter the other night and she asked why one of the characters was having nightmares about school.  I said that she was worried about not doing well on a test.  Abby looked at me as though I was crazy.  “But she can just do better the next time.  The teacher will give her lots of chances.  They always do.  They want her to do better.”  I hugged her tightly and said that she was right, of course she was right.  Every day is a new chance to do better. 

Abby has not realized, yet, that she is already being set against her classmates in competition.  Her teacher sends home a weekly math sheet filled with addition practice and asks parents to time their kids and mark down how many they did in 5 minutes.  Abby has not thought to check herself against her classmates, to see if she got as far as, or farther than her friends.  It would never cross her mind.  But soon enough it will.  Soon enough a friend will ask to see her work.  They will start comparing, and Abby will want to be better, or will get frustrated that her friend completed more than three rows or five rows or however many rows.  Soon enough, doing the work for the sake of understanding will no longer be acceptable.  She will begin to seek perfection. 

And really, I am torn.  I want her to be her best.  I want her to strive for better from herself always, because that will be her true education.  But I don’t want her to lose the joy of learning to the competition, because it is the rare soul who has both.  Once in a while I meet a student who still just loves to learn.  I have one in mind now.  I taught him for two years and always felt that he was not entirely of our world.  He finds joy in everything, and the more he knows, the more his curiosity grows.  He is so very present in all aspects of his life, and I am utterly in awe of this young man.  But I think he has managed this love of life and learning in spite of, not because of school.  He spent many of his school years in another country, and came here for high school only.  Maybe this is why he does not have that edge, that sharpness, that ache to be better than the rest.  Maybe this is why he is able to always float above the fray.  He has not been taught to compete with anyone but himself.  At his very center is tranquility.  And most of us, who can not claim this same serenity, are drawn to the few who can.  It is so foreign, so mysterious.

Because at my center is a nervous ball of energy.  It radiates chaos that I must control and keep in check, but it also gives me strength to keep moving, keep striving, keep working, keep competing.  I can sense that Abby’s center is my own, that she will have to search for peace to balance out her chaos. As long as she knows she only has to best herself, that perfection ends the journey, and goodness is the goal, then I will feel as though I too have done my best for her.