Perfectionism, part 1

[477150n]

For a long time now, I've been trying to overcome perfectionism. In the perfectionistic world view, a person is either good at something or bad at it. Success is something you are, not something you do. If you do well at something, it is because you were simply good at it to begin with. Pride in any accomplishment is therefore hubris, since your

Comments

[maggiedacatt]

Don't be too hard on left-brain/right-brain. Hemispheric specialization is real.

[flwyd]

It's real, but it's also really easy to overemphasize.

[maggiedacatt]

Depends on the processing task, really. :)

[477150n]

I'll take your word for it :) Definitely over popular science books from the late 70s. I don't really have a firm grasp on what is real anatomy versus what is culturally believed to be true.

Actually I think I do have a bias against left brain/right brain, because I think oversimplification of what it means lead into the "good at/bad at" fallacy, as well as some other badness. (For example, I was good at math as a kid, so expected to be bad at art; people think that science isn't a creative endeavor, etc.)

[maggiedacatt]

Yes, while some TASKS are processed mostly in one or the other hemisphere, that really has little bearing on what OTHER tasks you're good at. The whole thing about people being left-brain or right-brain dominant is the really abused notion.