The Pressure Of Perfection And The Reality Of Expectations.

Understanding the Hidden Costs of Striving for Perfection.

Ahmed Hassan
3 min readAug 29, 2024
Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

Why do we like perfection? As human beings, we are naturally drawn to it — it is human nature. Making our outfits perfect, receiving only good feedback, taking perfect pictures, and ensuring our daily lives go perfectly are common aspirations.

What drives us towards perfection is our aversion to criticism. People typically dislike receiving negative comments about their work. Consequently, we strive for perfection to avoid these situations. While expectations are pretty much the same as they pressure us to seek perfection in a world that searching for perfection will make you unhappy and unsatisfied.

In the upcoming sections, I will discuss how expectations and perfection are interconnected, how they can be harmful, and why perfection itself may be an unattainable goal.

Always expect less.

I started developing this skill over the past two years, and I saw a massive transformation in how I expect things. I realized one of the main reasons why this generation is full of unhappy people is because they have expectations. So the more they expect, the more likely they are to be upset. Expectations are often imaginary, and that’s why people…

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Ahmed Hassan
Ahmed Hassan

Written by Ahmed Hassan

Seeking for calmness in a noisy world. I often write about human behavior, generational change and personal experiences.

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