The Philosophy of Perfection
Ever since human beings started exploring the world around them in prehistoric times, the human mind started its journey to take its present form from its initial state of an ape’s mind. Man taught himself the use of stone weapons to hunt and to light up a fire by rubbing stones against one another. As the cycle of time kept rolling, we know how farming originated and then how eventually, human beings started making cities, thus writing histories of what we know today as iron-age civilizations. From those early pages of time to the present world of technology, things have changed, new ideas have been adopted and rejected, inventions have been patented, and socio-political institutions have gradually become mature. If we review history very closely, we are ought to find that nothing is permanent, except the idea that one has to be, as a community or as an individual, always be better than what it was the day before.
Yes, things change. What doesn’t change is the idea of becoming more perfect as a human being, as a society, and as a nation. This is the basic idea that drives progress, “Be better than what you were yesterday”. Everything should always change- change for the better, not for the worse. We must strive to be better with each passing day so that we can realize our true potential. It is necessary that we have a plan in our minds and perseverance in our hearts, to learn from our pasts and become a more filtered version of ourselves. Who doesn’t want a good personality, a caring family, a friendly society, and a prosperous country? It is the individual urge to become perfect at our jobs and train ourselves to have a perfect personality that will contribute to the ultimate goal of a happy world. In this write-up, I have mainly restricted myself to discussing the idea from the point of view of an individual.
Before we understand the philosophy of perfection, we need to know a concept. In 1943, Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist wrote a paper titled, “A Theory of Human Motivation”, where he discussed an idea which we know today popularly as “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs”. It is often signified by a pyramid with basic needs at the bottom and higher needs towards the top.
He divided the entire pyramid into 5 layers, each layer representing a particular realm of need that one desires in life. The bottommost layer is the basic physiological needs, which include the preliminary material needs of food, clothes, and shelter. It is followed by safety needs which include security, guarantee, employment, and source of income. Then comes, Belonging and Love needs which constitute the necessity of having friends and friendships. Followed by esteem needs, the urge for self-esteem, pride, and prestige. Finally at the top sits the self-actualization needs which represent one’s urge for self-realization and achieving one’s true potential. It is the topmost layer of need that drives our society. It is fulfilling the self-actualization needs that makes us different from others. Mediocrity is when one cannot think or have goals in life beyond fulfilling the lower level of needs in Maslow’s pyramid. One cannot achieve his dreams until and unless he is mentally restricted to the bottom of the pyramid.
Thus, we can say that we need to remove the feeling of mediocrity from our minds, too, through our actions and thoughts. We cannot just live like any other person. We need to have something unique for ourselves. We always need to nurture ourselves with new ideas. We need to have an inner urge to contribute to the world and create legacies. We need to be leaders, bring a change to ourselves, and influence people around us. We need to work so that we can spread positive vibes everywhere around us. We have to be determined to dream high, become more perfect, and bring about positive changes in our lives.
In the competitive world of today, there are more things that one needs to know, which includes the “growth mindset”. For example, we need to learn to deal with failures. It is always better to try and fail than not try at all. If it is so, even that failure will be a proud moment for us, because no matter how everybody comprehends us, we know within ourselves that we had given an endeavor behind the task. Irrespective of what we are judged to be, we need to compliment ourselves that we have done something, though not to the extent of becoming overconfident. It is the gratitude towards ourselves and the situations that teach us to always be on the right path. We must learn to forgive ourselves at times, and celebrate our successes when the time comes.
It is even necessary that we don’t forget to consciously develop our personality in this journey toward self-realization. Love and respect for every individual around us is the basis of what can make us great human beings. But again, we must not remain quiet when something wrong happens to us. We must never forgive people whose fault is not worth forgiving. And when we do so, we are not sending a message out that anger and violence are acceptable, but by doing so, we spread the message that our regard for someone will only depend on their own conduct. We must always keep exploring and expanding our minds, be it through learning a new skill, having a unique experience that would add value to our character, or teaching younger children the values of life-based on our own experiences.
In conclusion, we can say that directly or indirectly, we are always striving to be perfect. But is there any definition of perfection or a yardstick to judge whether somebody is already perfect or not? No. There is nothing as such. It is we who set our goals and striving for perfection is the urge that makes us struggle day and night to fulfill those dreams of ours. That “dreamy version” of ourselves, is the “perfect version”. There are undoubtedly hurdles that we face in our journey to that version of ourselves that we dream of, but the strength of our minds keeps us breathing. It is the dream of seeing everything perfect with oneself and with the world that motivates human civilization to progress and achieve eternity.
~Anurag Mukherjee
