Perfeitamente falhos

Alguns profissionais não têm margem muito ampla para cometer erros. É o caso de cirurgiões, pilotos e editores. Quem escolhe essas ocupações tende a buscar sempre resultados perfeitos.

Um bom tradutor precisa ser perfeccionista? A meu ver, a resposta é afirmativa com uma ressalva: só no trabalho. Easier said than done... mas é fato que surgem dificuldades quando essa característica transborda do âmbito profissional para outras áreas como a vida doméstica, aparência, hobbies e relacionamentos em geral.

É dessa questão que trata o artigo Unhappy? Self-Critical? Maybe You’re Just a Perfectionist de Benedict Carey, publicado no jornal New York Times. Abaixo, alguns trechos dignos de nota:

Unlike people given psychiatric labels, however, perfectionists neither battle stigma nor consider themselves to be somehow dysfunctional. On the contrary, said Alice Provost, an employee assistance counselor at the University of California, Davis, who recently ran group therapy for staff members struggling with perfectionist impulses. “They’re very proud of it,” she said. “And the culture highly values and reinforces their attitudes.” [...]

Ms. Provost said [the participants] in her program at U.C. Davis often displayed symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder — another risk for perfectionists. They couldn’t bear a messy desk. They found it nearly impossible to leave a job half-done, to do the next day. Some put in ludicrously long hours redoing tasks, chasing an ideal only they could see.

As an experiment, Ms. Provost had members of the group slack off on purpose, against their every instinct. “This was mostly in the context of work,” she said, “and they seem like small things, because what some of them considered failure was what most people would consider no big deal.”

Leave work on time. Don’t arrive early. Take all the breaks allowed. Leave the desk a mess. Allow yourself a set number of tries to finish a job; then turn in what you have.

“And then ask: Did you get punished? Did the university continue to function? Are you happier?” Ms. Provost said. “They were surprised that yes, everything continued to function, and the things they were so worried about weren’t that crucial.”

The British have a saying that encourages people to show their skills while mocking the universal fear of failure: Do your worst.

If you can’t tolerate your worst, at least once in a while, how true to yourself can you be?