The Empowerment in Appearing Foolish

This may seem paradoxical, considering the word foolish implies a disempowered, ignorant position, however, there are great merits to being “foolish”.

“Hello, my name is Ava, and I am a perfectionist. I have been in recovery for most of my life, and I frequently relapse.”

This is what I would say if I went to a uniquely curated recovery meeting, made just for me. I would imagine much of the American population, and especially women, would start with my same admission. Most of us are terrified of looking foolish, and our terror is managed by our extreme efforts to control life, relationships, and our image.

This terror, and thus the perfectionism we use to remedy it, is seriously all-pervasive. This perfectionism compulsion manifests in many cultures, and especially in America, as an obsession with: excellence, beauty, performance, accumulating wealth and wonderful experiences, and a special brand of consumerism that feeds a hunger that can never be quelled.

Sadly, if we seek, perform, and become this perfection, we believe we can reach our personal, social, societal, spiritual/religious, historical, and cultural standards for the perfect human life. We align with perfectionism as our religion, and we pray to this deity to avoid the fallout that comes from the opposite experience of perfectionism.

You may be lost right now. You may be saying, “What is the opposite experience of perfectionism, and what does this have to do with the title of this…