ON PERFECTION
By: Gilainne Sytingco

Our world is filled with models and ideals. Every day, the media throws images of perfect people at us – people with the perfect bodies, perfect faces, perfect smiles. In the sporting world, we are faced with models of successful sports people – men and women who truly excel at what they do. In the academic world, we are pushed to get those straight A’s. We are again pushed to succeed, to out-do or best each other, in a competition to claw one’s way to the top. While putting it in this way makes it seem sadistic, and even barbaric at times, this is the reality that we are faced with. We are encouraged to think and act in this way. That’s why it’s called a ‘dog eat dog world’. As a consequence of these societal ideals, we ourselves begin to set these models for ourselves. Instead of being comfortable with who we are, we are UNcomfortable. Most of us see ourselves as simply being not good enough, and so try even harder to succeed.

But what happens if we don’t succeed? What happens if we don’t reach the ideal that society, and even us ourselves have set? The answer is clear and obvious. All around us we see or hear about suicide, depression, and nervous breakdowns. People go into therapy – they see shrinks, and some go down the path of self-medication, which later results in addiction. Drugs and alcohol are prevalent in our society.

As if the fall of man himself is not enough of a tragedy, personal relationships can also suffer as a consequence of such negative self-image and the attempt to compete. I saw a good example of this just recently, while watching America’s Next Top Model. For those of you who don’t already know, this is a television program which showcases a group of girls competing for the title “America’s Top Model”. The girls must complete challenges and are judged by a panel. Each week, one girl is eliminated until there is only one left – the winner of the competition. While the girls are initially pleasant to each other, often developing bonds of friendship, these bonds usually break at some stage. In that installment of the series for example, there was a challenge concerning a commercial which involved the girls to reveal one of their secrets. During this challenge, one girl stole another’s secret. While this may sound truly petty on paper, to have seen the devastation on the other girl’s face and to have been told of the betrayal she felt, and, on top of that, to see what effect it had on her subsequent performance is proof enough. Any affable bond between these two girls has now been broken, because of the desire to win and to come out on top.

As a result, people become guarded. Trust becomes an issue. A friend of mine working in a big commercial company once told me that his work place environment was so competitive that he felt as if he could trust no one. It was a common practice that, once word that a promotion would be coming up, the employees would spread rumours about each other to destroy the chances of others getting that promotion. To make matters worst, not receiving a promotion often resulted in a lower self-image and low self-esteem. People become even more uncomfortable with themselves. And so, people become lonely. Mark Twain once said that the worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself. That must be one of the saddest, but (unfortunately) most true statements I have heard. Perhaps then, it might be better for society to begin changing the trend. Perhaps we should stop with the perfect, often unattainable images and start with the positive self-images.