Is perfection worth it?
Is perfection worth it?
Allow me to preface with the obvious: I make a living off of digital marketing and advertising. The modern female Don Draper who traded in the office on Madison Avenue, for a laptop and a mobile. But just like office spaces and typewriters have evolved, so has advertising, but not to a quick enough pace as I personally would have liked.
Social media has trained us as a culture to only show the highlights of our life. To show that perfection does exist and should be something we all strive for. The one promise I made to myself in 2010 when I started dabbling in social media and agency life was : Be in it, but not of it. Meaning, I could be the oil to the vinegar, or visa versa for that matter. That just because I was in the industry didn’t necessarily mean I had to sell my soul to the hype.
Despite my adamant testimonial, I fell into the trap.
I was in the hospital seven times in 2017 because of stress and anxiety. I kept it to myself, because I felt the world didn’t want to see the real Idalia, only the superwoman version of myself that never even existed.
Needless to say that was my wake up call. My call to arms. No I’m not perfect. No I don’t claim to be. And quite frankly, I really don’t want to be or be perceived as perfect. I fuck up all the time, and I’m okay with that because that’s how I evolve and grow. Those that know better, do better…. right?
So now what?
I made it one of the missions in my company to delete the idea of perfection - whether it’s talent I work with, or brands. I say it in all my speaking arrangements. I sound like a broken record on my podcast, and here I will say it again : Be YOU! Especially being a woman in today’s society, we are told to behave, act, speak, and dress a certain way. Throw that concept away with me. Let’s normalize being real. This also goes to brands I work with, and the campaigns I produce. Sure we all like the glossy, and sure sometimes we need an escape from reality. But we also shouldn’t be sweeping reality under a rug pretending it doesn’t exist. Could you imagine a world that when you went on social media, the comparison game wouldn’t creep up on you? Where we can be seeing people without rose-colored lenses and getting to the core of who the person is and what they actually stand for? It’s starts with us. It starts with you and me. Will you join me?
