Newspaper Columns by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Can perfectionism be a sin?
Enjoy the Gifts you have been Given
By Bishop Paul V. Marshall
May 2002If something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly.
Late in my college years I accepted the fact that, although I played well enough, I did not have what it takes to be a fulltime professional musician. I continued to practice and play the organ from 1969 until 1988. Then I stopped dead.
I had taken a teaching job at Yale and was associated, through an interdisciplinary program, with the performance faculty in the School of Music. Surrounded by excellence, I could not stand to hear myself play. I sold the small organ we had in our home, and devoted myself to my computer's keyboard, playing a kind of mental game show I called "Typing for Tenure."
While the satisfactions of research and writing are real, they are not music. Though I would occasionally play the piano -- it is not an instrument for which I have passion -- that did not really count.
There are, I think, other perfectionists in the world who join me in not doing -- or resenting -- what they cannot do perfectly. You see them throwing golf clubs across the fairway and stomping away or not joining in some group activities or generally "hiding their light under a bushel." Do you know people who have given up swimming because they look middle-aged in a bathing suit?
I have been on sabbatical for six months. Writing a book has been my major activity. Something else has emerged during this time as well.
Late last fall, I made an offhand remark about looking for a used organ. From that time I found myself playing more and more. I have come to terms with the fact that at nearly 55 I cannot play half so well as I could at 20, and that I will not have the time to practice seriously this side of retirement.
I have wrestled with the part of me that adopted the perfectionist theme in my family history. I have wrestled with the ghost of my organ teacher, a man so driven that he would terminate a lesson if more than one wrong note was played.
Defeating the perfectionist ghost has not been easy; nor is it complete. It involves remembering that I am playing for myself, not for an audience of critics. It means focusing on the beauty of the music, the genius of the composer, and the sound of the instrument.
It is like walking through a gallery of pictures one could never paint: seeing beauty in one canvas makes you continue the walk to the others. It means settling for what are only occasional moments of artistry in long sessions of mediocrity.
Enjoying the structure of the music, appreciating the creativity of the composer, and occasionally playing in a way the sounds "right," are rewarding enough to displace insistence that it be done right or not done at all. Maybe that is why they call it playing.
I'm not warning you to avoid my street in the early evening for the sake of your ears. My point is what St. Paul said: "Having gifts that differ, let us use them..." My point is to suggest that each of us ask what we have missed because we have not dared to be less than the best. Can perfectionism be a sin?
It is not just about playing. I know people who do not practice a profession for which they were trained because they cannot be the best at it. I know people who were told once that they aren't creative or funny or competent in some field or another. Because they believed it, their lives have been impoverished.
My fellow mediocrities, let's enjoy the gifts we have been given -- no matter how modest we may think them to be.
Return to the index of Bishop Paul's columns for the secular press
Home Site Map Please direct any questions or comments to the webmaster@diobeth.org
