Stephanie Stone
Stone
9 LA / 2nd Block
9 August 2010
There is a certain irony in the perfectionist being the first personality style listed on the Enneagram chart; a perfectionist would find anything less that first to be, well, not perfect. The enneagram is essentially a circle made of nine distinct personality types, and it is believed that every person has a specific, dominant spot within that circle. My first reaction would not have been to categorize myself as the critic or perfectionist, but after digging through all of my personality quirks, flaws, and attributes, I found that I had a new label for my slightly compulsive personality.
Although the term “perfectionist” brings to mind a negative connotation for many, there is a bright side to being a person who demands perfection. Type one personalities don’t pick and choose when they are going to follow the rules; they, myself included, are rigid about right and wrong and there is no gray area in-between. Similarly, when a perfectionist begins a task, she follows through with it until it is complete. Let me just preface this by saying that I love my husband, but his personality type is on the opposite end of the spectrum from mine. He isn’t a strict about rules or finishing tasks and this drives me crazy. For example, in my world, doing laundry means washing it, drying it, folding it, and putting it away. If all of these steps aren’t followed, then the job isn’t complete. My husband, on the other hand, believes that the laundry process is complete when the clothes are simply clean – the folding and putting away are just “extras”. I cannot rest until a job is complete and it has been done correctly. This aspect of my personality has made me a successful teacher, a positive role model, and an organized mother of two slightly hyper-active children!
While I would love to simply focus on the many positive aspects of my personality type, there are a few flaws which come with the perfectionist title – I sometimes refer to it as my “know-it-all syndrome”. In my quest for perfection, I admit that I can sometimes be too critical if a job does not meet my ideals of completeness. Like the saying goes, “It’s my way or the highway.” Let’s talk laundry again – It took me several years to realize why my husband didn’t follow through with those last two crucial steps to the laundry process; he never did them “right”. That is “right” by my standards. If he does not do things the exact way they are supposed to be done… that is my way … I’ll simply go behind him and redo it. I can see how this perfection would become annoying over a period of time and I constantly have to remind myself that little things like how my towels are folded aren’t really all that important.