Selective Perfectionism

      Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great start to their week! For me, everything was going pretty well until my last class, which happened to be English, when I received the grade for my AP English paper. Now this isn't just any ol' essay. This was the essay that allows us to receive college credit, so it was much bigger. We had to read a book (I chose Pride & Prejudice) and compare it to other novels that we'd read last semester for class. Okay so I had literally never worked as hard on anything than I did on that paper. I met with my teacher countless times and I read it over and over again to make sure it was perfect. I turned it in feeling very confident that I would receive an A, and I had never been prouder of an essay.
      So flash forward to a few hours ago when I got the paper back and I got a 92%. Don't get me wrong, I can't stand those people who complain about getting anything less than 100%, but I truly felt that my essay deserved an A (rather than an A-). I met with my teacher after class to ask him why he didn't point out the essay's flaws during all the times I had meetings with him, and he told me there were structural problems that I didn't fix and that I didn't make enough connections between each of the novels. Deep down, I knew he was right, but I let my pride get in the way and I basically demanded that he give me an A. He told me to read the comments again when I wasn't feeling so angry, and he made some really good points about my writing.
       I went directly from English to rehearsal for Grease, where I was talking to another girl in my class and she asked me what I got on the paper. I told her my grade and that I felt it deserved an A, and she said: "I thought my paper should have gotten a better grade, too! I only got a 97%." I swear to God I almost straight up punched her in the throat. I just know she didn't work half as hard on her paper as I did on mine, and it just kills me that she got an A+ and I only got an A-.
      Since then, I've been thinking about why I care so much that I got a slightly lower grade than I was expecting, and I seriously think I have selective perfectionism, which is a term of my own creation. It means I only care about some things, but I really care about those things. English used to be my best subject, and I could get 100% on pretty much everything without really trying, and this has been the first year ever when I've had to actually put in effort, and even when I do try I don't really do that well. It sucks because I'm not even good at the one thing I thought I was good at. I guess I just have to try to move past this. It's not the end of the world that I didn't get an A!

Carpe Diem,
Brooke