The weight of perfection

Whose agenda you are driving — that of your ego or that of your growth?

When you sense someone inside drive an overpowering thought or action, unsettling you and overriding your peace, it is the presence of an agenda. Agenda, in this context, differs from purpose; it is unconscious and unknown to its carrier, and hasn’t passed through the sieve of its usefulness to life. Purpose, in contrast, is conscious, conceived and highly considered. The other name for agenda is Ego, which almost always drives an ostensibly grand agenda, but one borne of fear, doubt, jealousy or shame. Eckhart Tolle describes ego as delusional, as it expertly deceives the one under its spell, justifies an act or thought with flattering self-dialogue. This deceptive ego that needs constant flattery, often takes over the show of life. “What’s your agenda?” is a question that I have imagined as always directed at someone else. But, as I turn the question back at myself, I feel the tremors of the ego at being spotted and questioned. However insidious, the ego always finds it easy to grand posture. Here, I elaborate through the narrative of Perfectionism. “I would never do that”, “I cannot stand that”, “I only like it this way” are some ‘milder, common’ perfectionist claims. If you find yourself in any of these phrases, you are recognising how ego manifests daily. Here, the agenda of the ego is self-aggrandisation — separating the self from another in an assertion of self-perfection. As we start to understand the agenda of the ego that hides in unassuming forms — as likes and dislikes, as values and opinions, often masquerading as an idea of self — we recognise its habitual allusion to perfection as its ideal. The agenda is to gain self-worth by claiming superiority to others — an image of self that can only be short-lived and unsustainable. So that soon enough the hunger for worth returns, and the triumphalism of me vs another plays in a loop. It’s a cheap agenda, to say the least.