“If I were a perfectionist, I would do this…” my boss said, demonstrating to me for the nth time how to take pictures.
That was how I knew I needed to quit my job. I was trying to get rid of this toxic mindset of being perfect, and I encountered it again, at work, where my employers drilled it into me that I had to be perfect at all times. There was no leeway to make mistakes, and it was tiring.
Thank goodness I wasn’t an air traffic controller.
I’d been taught at a very young age that I had to be perfect. I had to be smart, get straight As, and then get a high-paying job as a doctor or lawyer. Spoiler alert: I was never very good at Maths or Science. I was just good at daydreaming and being creative.
Another spoiler: I found out, as an adult, that I had ADHD, during my birthday month.
Happy Birthday to me, I guess?
But back to my job. I needed one that allowed room for creativity and not one where I was expected to blindly obey and not use my better judgement to determine what was best in terms of content direction.
My boss didn’t know it, but at that time, when she brought up perfection, she hurt me.
I’d been brought up to be perfect, forced to be a square peg in a round hole so many times. I’ve hurt myself, physically and mentally to be all of those things, beating myself up when I have come up short.
It took a long while to concede that I will never be, and here she was, reminding me of how I didn’t measure up.
Again.
I remember those days agonising over my university essays and not daring to hand them up almost killed me. All of those times I was too afraid to submit something also killed me. I had convinced myself that no one would want to read my work anyway, so I didn’t submit it. Part of it was because of perfectionism. Look at these writers. Their perfect prose. Their literary flair. Their obscure references. Meanwhile, I was here, a sitting duck, still stuck on something that didn’t work.
Until an editor released me.
She was brutal. Relentless. She told me that I’d wasted my time working on a project that wasn’t going to take off, so I was better off writing something else.
OK then.
I had an idea. An idea about ghost hunting in Singapore, but after the beating that my self-esteem had taken, I didn’t know if I could execute it. But hey—since I wasn’t perfect, and since I was a shitty student, shitty employee, and now, a shitty writer, there was no harm in trying it, right? I could write it, enjoy myself, and release myself from the need to be a good writer. An award-winning writer. The perfect writer. I’d had enough.
I was lucky.
Because that book about ghost hunters was picked up by Epigram, and it is out now. It pushed me and stretched me creatively, and even though it’s dark, I enjoyed writing it. I didn’t worry so much about it being perfect.
At least, not during the first draft.
Here it is:
Some people keep hoping to find the right time to move out, to start their own business, to break up with their significant other, and so on. They wait for the perfect moment, like how I thought when the stars would align, or how when I got good at writing, I would finally have a publishable book.
But there is no perfect moment, and the way to get better at writing was to write another book. And try again.
So here we are. The Ghost Hunters of Geylang is here. I hope that despite that dark themes, you’ll enjoy it and have fun. I know I did.
