It is never done

In layman’s terms, I am a perfectionist. To be a little more clinical, I have perfectionist tendencies. Frequently this tendency is accompanied by procrastination, which to me, seems an obvious twofer.If you can’t do what you want perfectly today, you might as well wait until tomorrow when you might be able to do it perfectly.
Occasionally, my perfectionism creates a problem for me when I do not enjoy some of the things that I do. Or I do not enjoy other things like people or well everything? And then a little voice in my head says, “Hey! Dumbass! Have you ever heard the expression ‘nothing’s perfect?’”
Lots of people are perfectionists. I have not been tested to see if I’m “outside the norm” or “somewhere on the spectrum. And, I do not know where it comes from. In psychology they use a word, complex, to describe the fact that each person has a set of little quirks, interpretations, and genetics, and experiences that lead to who you are. So my perfectionism is part of my complex.
Mostly psychologist don’t know where that stuff comes from. The Freudian stuff is not part of the current modern view for instance. It’s a bit too simple. Perfectionism would appear to come form the superego. Case closed if you were Freud. It took someone else to say, “where is that? and what created the superego?” Probably a perfectionist is my guess.
Anyhow, right now I am realizing that perfectionism is keeping me from enjoying my house. We have worked hard on our house and our yard. I keep saying when are going to finally be done doing stuff. And I started early on this too. The first visitors were stripping wall paper and helping me install new faucet. Thanks family.
I need to stop doing that. Wait. That’s perfectionist phrasing. I want to stop doing that. I would prefer to enjoy all the work that we’ve done. Okay. I can try to do that.
Broadly speaking, I am disputing an irrational belief. Somewhere I developed the habit of unconsciously saying phrases such as I need to finish this. Or this has got to be perfect. Instead, when I catch myself doing that, I can rephrase my internal dialog. Clearly, the house does not NEED to be complete or perfect for enjoyment. The kids and Amy enjoy it as it is. Lots of people think it is delightful and aesthetic pleasing. Realistically, what is perfect in a house anyway? Something is going to break or go out of date or need paint. It naturally needs care but not perfection.
This knowledge is also at the heart of why I didn’t like the idea of buying a house in the first place. But that’s okay too. It was a bit of test to buy one. I knew that I was defending myself against the idea of perfection, that is I was using a kind of procrastination. It doesn’t matter one way or the other if I screw up renting or buying. It seems like the damage is less if you rent but is it? Being kicked out of your house would suck whether you rent or buy.
Yesterday, I dug up a tree. We had a beautiful Japanese maple die in our front yard. We put it in (actually someone else did) when we re-did our front yard. I did a tree-opsy, and it appears the clay soil you find in our area, coupled with the extreme heat and dryness we had when we put in the tree prevented it from putting root down very far. It tried to compensate by putting out lots of lateral roots but ultimately it was essentially starving.
Taking out was lot of work. And it was sad and disappointing.
Trees are resilient and in other setting other than your front yard, nature can wait out the conditions and compensate by becoming an old gnarly tree. Sometimes that can be cool but it takes a long time. In the meanwhile you are looking at sick tree. But that stuff happens. Oh well. It is easy not to expect a tree to be perfect.