The Consequences of Perfectionism

A year or two ago while on my way to a friend’s house, I passed by a church that had a sign outside of it reading “Be happy with what you have, but never with what you are.” While the person who posted this phrase may have meant for it to speak out to reckless drivers and drug dealers, when I saw it, I couldn’t help but think of the fact that the church was located just down the road from a gay bar. Yet regardless of whom this message was intended to reach, the general idea of it seemed to be that everyone should be content with their situation, no matter how bleak it may be, yet they should constantly criticize themselves, even if they are decent, successful people.

The idea that everyone should strive for perfection even though no one will ever reach it is everywhere. Parents who don’t take out the time to help their kids with their homework often still expect their children to get straight As. The media dictates to young women that in order to be beautiful, they have to have the perfect face and perfect body even though no one can really control the shape of their nose or the size of their breasts. And people who hope to succeed in art, writing, or music are often told that they have to work extra hard if they ever hope to catch up to others who were born talented in those areas. Maybe some people think that these pressures will challenge people to work harder, but instead, they only seems to lead to nervous breakdowns, cosmetic surgery, and hopelessness.

The concept of unachievable perfection can easily destroy people’s happiness in everyday life. For example, if someone takes on a hobby like painting or woodworking but is too obsessed with the idea that everything they make has to turn out exactly the way they hoped it would, this can be frustrating and take any enjoyment or relaxation out of their hobby. Additionally, when people have such high expectations of themselves, they often start to expect every situation to go the way they want it to as well. This kind of frame of mind can make all kinds of life situations (deaths, illness, break ups, losing a job, etc.) harder than they have to be.

While I still don’t know for sure what that church was trying to promote by leaving that message up on the sign, what I do know is that if psychologists wonder why depression, low self-esteem, and suicide are so abundant in our society, they have no farther to look than all the various people, places, and things that claim that no one, no matter how perfect they may be, should be happy being who they are.

Why Modern Technology Makes the Recession an Even Bigger Nightmare

I’m sure that we can all think back and remember a time when most upper-middle class Americans owned a cell phone, an iPod or CD player, a camera, a radio, a camcorder, a computer with Internet access, and either a GPS system for their car or else a wide variety of maps. Yet now, everyone can make calls, listen to music, take pictures, listen to Internet radio stations, shoot video, surf the web, check email, and find out where they’re going all from their iPhone. As more and more people buy iPhones, fewer and fewer people continue to buy devices that accomplish only one or two of the tasks the iPhone is capable of, such as cell phones and camcorders. Consequently, with fewer people buying the in-demand electronics of the past, fewer workers are needed to manufacture and sell these items. If this weren’t bad enough, these days, nobody needs to go to the bookstore to buy travel guides, Shakespeare plays, or books for birdwatchers, because there are apps for all of that, and as a greater number of people begin to use iTunes, a greater number of CD stores begin to go out of business.

It’s not just the iPhone that’s putting the little guy out of work either though. For example, I’m ancient enough to remember a time when there wasn’t such a thing as the self-check-out line at the grocery store. Back then, supermarkets had to hire more people as cashiers and baggers. A while before that, when ATMs didn’t exist, more positions as bank tellers were available. Similarly, at one time, everyone driving on Illinois toll roads had to stop at toll booths that employed several people at a time. Now, drivers in Illinois need an I-PASS because toll booths and their employees are a thing of the past.

The Internet has also made many occupations nearly obsolete. Independent and small chain bookstores have become scarce as most people purchase books online through Barnes & Noble or Amazon. This decreases the number of positions available for those who wish to be a cashier or manager of a small bookstore. Online banking takes jobs away from tellers, online newspapers result in fewer people subscribing to paper newspapers, and nobody buys recipe books anymore with all the free recipes available online.

While the abundance of services that modern technology provides may save consumers time and money, it takes a toll on those looking for work, especially in an age when many factories have moved to other countries and many people who had a steady income years ago have now been laid off.

Assumptions People Make About Homeschooling

Last week, I noticed articles both online and in Time Magazine about a German family that moved to the United States in order to continue to homeschool their children. Apparently in Germany, homeschooling is illegal to such an extent that parents who try to do homeschooling can lose custody of their children, and this particular family repeatedly got in trouble with the law because of their decision to homeschool. They moved to the United States because here, homeschooling is legal nationwide. In some states, homeschoolers have to take standardized tests or alert the government of the fact that they are homeschooling, while in others, like Illinois, there are no laws at all regarding how home education must be conducted.

Having been homeschooled from grade 3 on through high school, there isn’t much about home education that I don’t know. But after having read the articles about this German family, I decided to try to find out just what exactly it is that people have against homeschooling. What I found pretty much amounted to nothing but a lot of false assumptions.

Most of the articles I found about homeschooling (with the exception of those written by actual homeschoolers) stressed that children who are homeschooled are “unsocialized“, which is a common misperception started by traditionally-schooled individuals who apparently don’t realize that “unsocialized” isn’t even a real word. Many people with little knowledge on the subject of homeschooling assume that homeschooled kids never get out and are locked up by themselves all the time when in reality, most homeschoolers belong to multiple homeschooling social groups, are involved in several extra-curricular activities, and even take classes at community colleges once they reach high school age. When I was in junior high and homeschooled, I went to parties with friends, played soccer with the neighbourhood kids, and spent afternoons instant messaging my friends online just like anyone else. Hell, by the time I reached high school, I was spending so much time hanging out with my friends and going to classes that I was hardly ever at home. Now, I make lots of “normal” people feel really naïve when they say to me “oh you poor thing, you missed the prom” and I tell them about how I did in fact go to a homeschooler’s prom as well as many other dances.

A lot of other websites about homeschooling state that most home educators do homeschooling because of their conservative religious beliefs. This is pretty hilarious to me, considering I’ve known a couple hundred homeschoolers and can count on one hand the number of them who chose to do homeschooling for religious purposes. A majority of the homeschoolers I’ve known are liberals, some of whom are also atheists, vegetarians, environmentalists, feminists, pagans, radical artists, or individuals who are non-conformists in some other way. Most of them homeschool because they aren’t happy with the public school system while others homeschool because their children have learning disabilities, severe allergies, or are advanced for their age and would be disadvantaged if placed in a grade according to their age. In other words, public schools believe in conformity, whereas homeschoolers believe everyone should be allowed to be unique and pursue their own goals.

Possibly the most ridiculous piece of information I found on the subject of homeschooling was on Wikipedia’s page about homeschooling, which stated that people are opposed to homeschooling because of the potential for unmonitored child abuse. It appears that one woman took her children out of school and was later charged with murdering them. Of course to say that this is a reason to be opposed to homeschooling is about as logical as saying that because one man from California robbed a bank, all men from California are likely to be bank robbers. I’ve known homeschooling families who have experienced all kinds of problems, from severe illness to financial difficulties to divorce, yet generally, I’ve found that homeschooling parents do homeschooling because they are concerned about the well-being of their children. To assume that homeschooling and child abuse are related only proves that the person making that assumption is very uneducated when it comes to the subject of home education.

What Girls do for Guys

People constantly talk about the negative affects the media has on young women with its unrealistic expectations about how women should look, dress, and act. People also often rant about how, in Junior High and High School, girls who are quiet and nerdy feel like they need to change and conform to the ways of the preppy cheerleaders in order to fit in. But what disgusts me is how so many girls, at the end of high school or in college, once they have already established their own personality and appearance, will suddenly undergo a complete identity transplant just in order to attract guys.

I’m not saying this is something all girls go through (I sure as hell haven’t), but I’m sure we’ve all witnessed it at some point or another. Some girls who got straight A’s through high school suddenly start devoting less time to their studies in college because they’ve bought into the shallow stereotypes that hot guys go for dumb girls. Or a girl who was always an athletic tomboy gives up all her old interests and starts wearing miniskirts and heavy makeup because that’s what her boyfriend likes. I had a friend in high school who constantly talked about how much promiscuity disgusted her, yet a few months before she turned eighteen, she woke up one morning and decided to start talking about sex constantly because she wasn’t getting guys to date her any other way. Most recently, I found out a girl I know who had always been very religious and open about the fact that she wanted to save herself for marriage is now hanging out with a guy who has a very perverse reputation, and it looks like they might be dating.

Now I’m far from being the most conservative gal around. I have nothing against girls dressing flashy or wearing makeup in order to look attractive. Likewise, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a girl telling dirty jokes with her friends or laughing at inappropriate things that other people say. I know I’ve done all of those things myself at one point or another. But when women compromise their own opinions, values, interests, and general self-identity, whether it be to appease the media, their friends, or someone they’d like to date, I think it’s both sad and disturbing. You should be who you want to be rather than trying to transform yourself into what another person wants. And if that person you’re hoping to attract doesn’t want you the way you already are, then that person isn’t worth having in your life.