Pressure and Perfection

I've been giving a lot of thought to these two words lately.  Particularly that second one: perfection.  This is an idea that I have struggled with since I was very young.  I remember feeling like a failure when I got a B+ on a progress report in 6th grade because of a low grade on a group test.  And spending hours stressing over the little details on a biology project in 9th grade.  And being completely crushed when I wasn't "good enough" or "perfect enough" to make yearbook editor or dance company my senior year in high school.  And feeling very ordinary, very average, very "unperfect" surrounded by thousands of intelligent, beautiful, spiritually strong young men and women at BYU.  In a very real sense, I attached my sense of self-worth, my own value, to how well I measured up to this abstract definition of "perfection."  It's something that I have worked to change, but something that I have by no means mastered.

Lately I've been thinking though - where does this intense "pressure" to be perfect come from?  After giving it a lot of thought, I came to the conclusion that for me, the pressure comes from within.  Now wait a second, some of you may be thinking.  But the media tells you that you have to be a size 0 and have a perfect job and make lots of money to be successful.  And church culture tells you that you need to always do your visiting teaching and visit the sick and read your scriptures faithfully everyday without fail and have your two year supply of food storage ready (and the list goes on) to be successful.  And BYU culture tells you that you need to be married by 21 or at least be going on dates every weekend to be successful.  That's a lot of pressure!  And that's not you - that's everybody else.  Yes, that is true.  And those messages might be coming at me all the time.  But ultimately the messages would carry no power if it were not for what happened when I received them.  I immediately start comparing myself to others.  To that girl who is two years younger than me and already has a baby.  To that boy who raises his hand in Sunday school to talk about the incredible spiritual experience he has had.  To that girl who has better grades than me, goes on dates every weekend, and by the way, is gorgeous too.  That is where the pressure comes from.  Who is the master at these comparisons?  At showing me how to compare my weaknesses to someone else's strengths?  At helping me feel that intense pressure?  Yup, the master of deception: Satan himself.

People often talk about the pressure you feel at BYU to be perfect.  In my experience, Satan always hits me the hardest at the times when I have the most to learn, the most to grow.  He hates those moments in my life. Those moments when I learn to rely on the Savior for strength.  Those moments when my testimony grows by leaps and bounds.  Perhaps this is one explanation for why that pressure becomes so intense at BYU, coupled with the fact that you are surrounded by thousands of intelligent Latter Day Saint young men and women to compare yourself to.  I left BYU a much different person than when I entered there as a freshman.  I know it was the right place for me because I believe that the growth I experienced there would not have happened anywhere else.  That makes it the perfect place for Satan to attack me, to try to tear me down.  And one of the strongest tools he has is the "pressure to be perfect."

I've realized that what it comes down to is faith in God's timing.  Looking back now, I can see that perhaps it wasn't what I needed to be on dance company or to be yearbook editor.  And let's just say that I don't have to take off my shoes to count the number of actual dates that I went on during my four years at BYU.  Some girls like to provide two possible explanations for this: either there's something wrong with me or there's something wrong with the guys.  We've already looked at the dangers of the first.  The second is often an easy explanation to cling to, but I would like to introduce a third option.  Maybe it's about timing.  Maybe the lessons that I needed to learn, the relationships I needed to develop while I was at BYU were better served by me being somewhere else on a Friday night than sitting across a table from a boy at Pizza Pie Cafe.  Perhaps those "girl's nights" or late night chats with roommates, or hanging out at the pool with people from the ward, were exactly what I needed.  Perhaps there are lessons I still need to learn before I enter into that world called marriage.  Perhaps I am exactly where I need to be right now.  I don't know.  I don't have all the answers.  I am nowhere near "perfection" right now.  But I do know that I am trying to do my best.  I have faith that I'm on the right path and trying to move forward.  Some days I get to sprint forward.  Other days it's more of a slow crawl.  And others I stumble backwards and it's all I can do to just stay put on the path.  I don't know how or why, but I do know that I am where I need to be.  And I have hope and faith that there are amazing things in store for me in the future.