The courage to be imperfect

Alfred Adler was a sickly child. He had rickets and struggled to walk, and at about five he nearly died of pneumonia. Watching his older brother run and play, he felt small and behind. He later said his illnesses led him to become a doctor.

Adler came to believe that feeling inferior is part of being human. We all start out small and dependent, surrounded by people who can do more than we can. His student Rudolf Dreikurs, who carried Adler's ideas to Chicago, gave a famous lecture in 1957 whose title sums up where this leads: "The Courage to Be Imperfect".

For Adler, feeling "not enough" isn't a problem in itself. It can be a spur: the toddler who can't yet walk keeps trying, and that's how they learn.

Trouble starts when the feeling becomes a reason not to try. "I'll start when I'm better at it." "I can't share it until it's perfect." Adler named this the inferiority complex, a term that has passed into everyday speech. Perfectionism is often a version of it: if you never finish, you can never be judged on what you made.

Perfectionism seems to be on the rise. A review of studies of college students in the US, Canada and the UK found that perfectionism, especially the sense that others expect perfection of you, rose between 1989 and 2016. It is linked to anxiety, depression and burnout.

Kenji has been working on a novel for six years. He has rewritten the first three chapters so many times he has lost count, and has never shown a page to anyone. A friend runs a small writing group and keeps inviting him. Kenji says he'll join "once the opening is finally right", because he doesn't want them to think he's a beginner.