The Pursuit of Perfect !

The Pursuit of Perfect ! 

The pursuit of Perfect is a wonderful book written by Tal Ben-Shahar , Ph.D . He is a popular teacher in Harvard University . He teaches a very popular course on ' happiness ' .  As wonderful and useful it is to understand ways to be happy , Tal Ben-Shahar found that most of his students , parents and others around were always stressed-out ! He discovered that people when searching for happiness were also wanting to be perfect ! 

Now , I want to share this wonderful and great book to you because , I feel , that most of us have a problem ! ( Including me ! ) . We all want to be perfect ! Somewhere in our early life , we get trapped into this need to be perfect ! As a youngster, I too wanted to be perfect . It went on in many aspects of my life. I can share with you that we just get into a weird situation of always chasing perfection and searching or hoping to be happy in that chase ! Only to go on chasing this illusive desire , need or dream of achieving perfection ! It's like a wild goose chase . We all who want to be successful have a need and high expectation to get what we want . The society too puts pressure on us ! We want to look younger , to make more money , want to be happy and stand out or tall in our society . All these need to be perfect is a hurdle or obstacle to being happy .

The book is well researched with cutting edge groundbreaking  scientific principles from the field of Positive psychology . Tal Ben-Shahar is a wonderful human being who is worth listening to . Watch him on YouTube and you will not be disappointed . 

In this wonderful book ,  Tal ,has a very gentle way of teaching  us about how we become obsessed with the idea of perfection . I have been thinking about the meaning of perfect and I honestly do not understand it today ! I simply don't know how this ideas got into us to be perfect ! In the field of psychology or psychiatry , we have a condition known as OCD . Obsessive compulsive disorder . 

Our behave of perfection is closely related to this OCD ! 

When we have an OCD personalty or what some people think is perfect , it can be very stressful and tiring . I want my physical body to be 75.00 Kilos . So , I am now going to do all sorts of strange things to get my desired  75.00 Kilos ! If I become 76.00 ,then I am not happy or satisfied ! I know that going back to 75.00 Kilos is good as from 76.00 , I can go towards 77.00 and so on . The point is it's okay to what has happened and just be mindful . Unfortunately , many people really get stressed that now they are 77.00 or whatever weight . That is really bad . The perfectionist is rigid and critical of his situation . He/she actually become very hard on themselves . They start to abuse or self- bully !

The goals becomes more important then having a good life . The perfectionist set their mind on the destination and not the journey . 

Tal , coined a new word , Optimalist .  The Optimalist is a realist , sees life as made of ups and downs.

Understands failure as part of living and in fact uses failure as a feedback to move forward. Optimalist also is forgiving and open to suggestions.

This is a very real subject that we have to become aware off . Being perfect is very stressful .

I really urge all the people to please read this wonderful book .

That's enough for today , til we meet again . Take care. 

Dr Dhali /Amar.