如何才能逃脱完美主义的陷阱How to Escape the Perfectionism Trap

How to Escape the Perfectionism Trap

Perfectionism is back, as alluring and unforgiving as before, which “makes for a thin life, lived for what it isn’t rather than what it is”. If you’re forever trying to make your life what you want it to be, you’re not really living the life you have. The imperative towards perfection remains as potent and pervasive as ever.

完美主义卷土重来，它既迷人又不讲情面，把人生压成一张薄片，造就了一种贫瘠的生活：“人们总是在追逐自己缺失的部分，而不是安于自己所拥有的一切。如果你永远试图让生活变成你想要的样子，你就没有真正活在你拥有的生活中。”对完美的执念依旧强劲，无处不在。

In an article in 2017 two British psychologists, Thomas Curran and Andrew Hill, ascribed an exponential rise in perfectionism among the younger generation to the “increasingly demanding social and economic parameters” within which they struggled to make their lives. They also blamed “increasingly anxious and controlling parental practices”.

2017年，英国心理学家托马斯·柯伦和安德鲁·希尔在一篇文章中指出：年轻一代完美主义倾向的急剧上升，源于他们在成长过程中所面临的“日益严苛的社会经济环境”，同时，“父母越来越焦虑且控制欲过强的教养方式”也难辞其咎。

Over-crowded labour markets, particularly for desirable professional and creative jobs, as well as unaffordable housing, are driving young people and their parents to ever greater lengths to secure a competitive advantage.

拥挤的劳动力市场（尤其是理想的职业和创意岗位）以及高不可攀的房价，正驱使年轻人和他们的父母竭尽全力确保竞争优势。

So begins another unpaid internship, further training or some other side-hustle. By linking the spread of perfectionist anxiety to the atmosphere of precarity and competition conjured by the free market, a critique of meritocracy by Michael Sandel, an American philosopher. In “The Tyranny of Merit”, he argues that meritocratic capitalism created a permanent state of competition within society, which corrodes solidarity and the notion of the “common good”.

于是，又一段无薪实习悄然开始；又一门培训被匆忙报上；又一个副业在夜色里点亮。美国哲学家迈克尔·桑德尔将这种完美主义焦虑的蔓延与自由市场所营造的充满不稳定感和竞争的氛围联系起来，从而对“功绩主义”提出尖锐的质疑。在其出版的《功绩的暴政》一书里，桑德尔认为，精英资本主义在社会内部制造了一种永久的竞争状态，这种状态侵蚀了社会团结与“共同利益”的理念。

This system sustains an order of winners and losers, breeding “hubris and self-congratulation” among the former and chronically low self-worth among the latter.

在精英主义的评价体系里，持续的胜利容易催生傲慢，而反复的挫败则会缓慢侵蚀一个人的自我价值感，使自卑内化为一种心理常态。

In past era, perfectionism meant seamlessly conforming to values, behaviour and appearance: chiselled confidence for men, demure graciousness for women. The perfectionist was under pressure to look like everyone else, only more so.

在过去，完美主义意味着与价值观、行为和外表无缝契合：男性要有棱角分明的自信，女性则需温婉优雅。完美主义者承受着与他人保持一致的压力，甚至要做得更极致。

The perfectionists of today, by contrast, feel an obligation to stand out through their idiosyncratic style and wit if they are to gain a foothold in the attention economy.

相比之下，今天的完美主义者则感到有义务通过独特的风格和智慧脱颖而出，才能在注意力经济中站稳脚跟。

Perfectionism is not solely a malign force, however. The demand for perfection may be stifling, but a perfectionist can also feel that his achievements are the only thing holding him together. When we’re overwhelmed by life and chastise ourselves for our inadequacies, a stellar test score or a thousand Instagram likes can deliver the fleeting sensation that everything is under control.

然而，完美主义并非全然有害。追求极致固然令人窒息，但完美主义者往往将成就视作维系自我的唯一支柱。当生活如潮水般涌来，我们因自身缺陷而自我苛责时，一次惊艳的考试成绩，或是社交平台上收获的万千点赞，便能带来片刻幻象——仿佛一切尽在掌控之中。

In such a culture, young people are likely to grow dissatisfied both with what they have and who they are. Social media creates additional pressure to construct a perfect public image, exacerbating our feelings of inadequacy.

在这样的文化氛围中，年轻人很容易对自己所拥有的和自身的现状感到不满。社交媒体更是加剧了这种不满足感，因为它迫使人们去塑造一个完美的公众形象。

In the absence of intrinsic feelings of worth, a perfectionist tends to measure her own value against external measures: academic record, athletic prowess, popularity, professional achievement.

当内在价值感缺失时，完美主义者往往通过外在标准来衡量自我价值：例如学业成绩、运动天赋、社交人气、职业成就等。

When he falls short of expectations, he feels shame and humiliation. This weight of society’s expectations is hardly a new phenomenon but it has become particularly draining over recent decades, perhaps because expectations themselves are so multifarious and contradictory.

一旦未能达到预期，羞耻与屈辱便如影随形。社会期望的重压并非新现象，但近几十年来却变得尤为令人心力交瘁，或许是因为期望本身变得如此纷繁复杂且相互矛盾。

Social media might well be ground zero for this phenomenon. The obsessively curated and controlled Instagram profile has become so ubiquitous that it has birthed a new profession: the influencer. Like just about any societal development, this has some upside. Some voices social media have elevated are genuinely interesting and would have struggled to make themselves heard in an earlier era. More often, they peddle a lifestyle without the messiness of life.

社交媒体是这一现象的主要发源地。那些精心雕琢的ins账号如今遍地都是，甚至养活了一个新行当：网红。和所有社会潮流一样，它也有好的一面。有些通过社交媒体被听到的声音确有见地，换作以前可能根本没人注意。但更多时候，这些账号在兜售一种近乎“完美的生活”。

We see idealized homes, idealized bodies, idealized dinners on idealized tableware. What we do not see is the struggle that forms the core of the human experience, that forces us to think in new ways and encourages us to forge connections with people who might see the world in ways we so far have not.

屏幕跟前，我们看到的无疑都是样板房式的家、模特般的身材、摆拍一样的饭菜和精致得像道具的餐具。可我们看不到的，才是人生的常态——那些磕磕绊绊、纠结起伏，正是这些平凡驱使我们去思考、去改善，去和那些抱有不同观点的人真正走到一起。

The difficulty of escaping the snares of perfectionism suggests that it has a place deep in the structure of the human psyche. However we are brought up we internalise an ideal of the person we aspire to be. Yet though perfectionism can corrode our sense of self-worth, few of us would want to give up the ambition to develop and grow.

完美主义之所以难以摆脱，恰恰因为它根植于人类心理结构的深处。无论成长环境如何，我们总会在内心内化一个理想自我的形象。然而，尽管完美主义可能侵蚀我们的自我价值感，却很少有人愿意放弃成长与进步的渴望。

Serge Leclaire, a French psychoanalyst, posited the intriguing idea that life sets us the task of metaphorically killing this wonderful child. We must continually renounce the fantasy of an ideal self and grieve its impossibility. How might we protect this aspiration from the incursions of perfectionist zeal?

法国心理分析学家塞尔日·勒克莱尔提出过一个耐人寻味的观点：人生的重要课题，便是象征性地“扼杀”内心那个完美的孩童。我们必须不断放弃对理想自我的幻想，并坦然接受这种理想终不可达的事实。那么，我们该如何在追求进步的同时，抵御完美主义热情的侵蚀呢？

There are no easy answers. Something about being human makes it difficult to feel that we have done, or are, enough. We are unwilling to extinguish the hope that, one day, we will be recognised as exceptional: the perfect being that our parents once placed on a pedestal.

答案并不易寻。人性深处总萦绕着一种不满足——我们很难相信自己已然足够，或活得足够完美。我们总暗暗盼着有一天，自己会被认作卓越的榜样，活成父母眼中那个“别人家的孩子”。

Perfectionism may appear to spur us on to adult successes. But in truth it is a fundamentally childish attitude. It imbues us with the conviction that life in effect ends when we give up hope of becoming the best version of ourselves. On the contrary, when we really discovered the genuine nature of who we are, that is the moment at which life can finally begin.

完美主义看似能鞭策我们取得世俗成就，实则源于一种未成熟的心智。它让我们相信，若放弃成为至善的幻梦，人生便失去意义。然而事实恰恰相反——唯只有当我们真正看见并接纳自己真实的模样，人生才真正开始。