Perfectionism is not limited just to those who may proudly identify themselves as perfectionists. It’s not an affliction just for those high-achievers and over-achievers who push past striving for excellence, and, unaware of their limits, aim for perfection. Nor is it an issue just for people who have psychological and emotional problems.

Perfectionism is consciously and unconsciously built into the very cultural, psychological and reli­gious foundations of our achievement-oriented upbringing and, because of this, is an issue that affects everyone, at least to some degree. One implica­tion of this is that, to the degree perfectionism does influence everyone in our cul­ture, it’s various hidden consequences and perils affect us all.

One of the most common concerns that we have when we think about giving up perfectionistic standards is the fear that, should we give up this standard, we will have nothing left with which to motivate or guide our behavior. We fear that we, individually and as a society, might just fall apart—that people would just become “couch potatoes” and stop working or doing anything productive. With no stan­dard of perfection to motivate society to work, we might wonder, “How would the corn ever make it by truck from Ohio to the markets in California?”

Of course, I’m not suggesting that we stop trying to perform at a high level or give up our motivation to achieve. But I do suggest we need to have appropriate standards rather than pie-in-the-sky perfectionistic ones that are impossible to meet. And in place of perfection, our standard for performance should be excellence. The crucial differences between these two standards is one theme woven through this book—it’s not just “a matter of semantics” in advocating excellence in place of perfection.

“More Books Than Anyone Alive”

Here’s the story of one of the more interesting and memorable patients I’ve seen over the last thirty years. Arnold was 43 when he came to see me about a broken relationship and a sense of nagging failure, despite his high accomplishments. He had accomplished enough already , it seemed, to fill two full lifetimes.

Arnold was unable to sit still very long, always a little jittery. He would either nervously tap his foot while he spoke, or he’d move around in his chair. He could­n’t quite get comfortable in the present and just settle into being with me.

Arnold was a good example of what psychologists call the classic "Type A" driven personality. He did everything fast, had great difficulty totally relaxing and doing absolutely nothing, and had a chronic sense of urgency in his life. Nothing felt right for him unless it was done intensely and for a long time. For Arnold, there was only one setting on the dial, and it read: “Full throttle, high intensity.”

On the one hand, this sense of urgency spurred him to produce scholarly text-books and articles at an astonishing pace and push himself to succeed at daring sports activities. I was impressed by his productivity and how he had been able to extract himself from the teach-a-class-and-do-research world of the academic university by having his books sell so well in colleges and high schools that he could live off the royalties for many years, even if he never wrote another word or revised another text.

On the other hand, his urgency made it impossible for him to slow down and catch his breath, so that rarely could he allow himself to stop producing or showing off without feeling anxious and unworthy. Arnold didn’t let his accomplishments give him a sense of true inner security.

His fascination with his intellectual prowess and talents made it difficult for him not to look at others as satellites to him. He tended to relegate everyone else in his life—his parents, ex-wife, girlfriend, children, secretary, colleagues, and employees— into secondary roles. They received insufficient thought as to what they might need from him, because Arnold’s concern with what others could do for him left little room for such considerations.

It wasn’t hard to see why he had developed a distorted sense of self-importance. On the surface, he seemed very confident and sure of himself. He had done an incredible amount of high-level work and was quite talented in a number of sports and hobbies.

Arnold told me he couldn't find anyone to be friends with who could come close to having his range of interests. His friends might share one or maybe two interests in common with him. But a lot of the time he just pursued his interests alone. As he put it, "I work hard and I play hard—nobody can keep up with me."

What were his particular skills and interests? To me, the most impressive was that he had earned a Ph.D. in his chosen academic discipline in his early twenties and had gone on to write a number of widely-adopted text books, many of which were updated on a regular basis. He boasted to me, once I got him talking about his work, that he had written more books in his specialty area than “anyone else alive.”

Of course, a claim of this magnitude did not pass by my ears lightly, and I discovered that he was telling me the truth about his success, although I couldn’t be sure about the “more than anybody else alive” part. To verify (and because I was curious about his writing) he actually did write books as he claimed, I had him bring in some examples. These were scholarly, tedious, informed, and moderately demanding textbooks that he had become an expert at churning out on a variety of subjects related to his field. He claimed to have written more than 70 books, al­though many of these were revised editions of original books.

Arnold wasn't satisfied being at the top of the heap in his just his own area of work. He wanted to be the best in every activity he took on. He had gone beyond striving for excellence and would stop at nothing short of perfection. Arnold wanted to be able to perform all kinds of physical and mental feats at the highest possible level. He wanted to be a Man For All Seasons and did his best to make this a reality.