pickQuindlen extolls the wisdom of avoiding perfectionism, or the perfection trap. She moves ahead of the pack by asking the reader to consider what makes YOU happy, not your friends or family, YOU. The underlying message in the book...set goals and objectives in life that create happiness for you. We all have a tendency, at times, do what it takes to make those around us pleased or happy. These acts are not necessarily what makes us happy.
Pursuing perfection makes you unforgiving of the faults of others.
Even the illusion of perfection requires an enormous amount of work...There's some muscle group around your shoulders that seizes up during the perfection dance and doesn't let go until you are asleep, or alone. Or maybe it never really lets go at all.
"So if this sounds in any way familiar to you, if you have been trying to be perfect, too, then perhaps today is the day to put down that backpack before you develop permanent curvature of the spirit."
"And eventually being perfect* became like carrying a backpack filled with bricks every single day." *[trying to be]
Being Perfect | 
