Objession with perfection

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I relate to this but it was a lot worse before I started OCD medication

If I were a perfectionist, I would've lost my mind already. Not just because of myself, but very much because of everything else around me.

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I tend to think: "If it's not completely right it's completely wrong."
But I'm now trying to embrace the 80/20 rule: 20% effort produces 80% result. If you want that last 20% (ie perfection) it needs another 80% effort.

My god yes. I think perfection stems from a core of trying to be in control in a totally out of control world. But I can't help it the majority of the time.

Every single thing I own has a specific place. If something is out of place I'll get a uncomfortable tingling in my whole body until I fix it. I rigidly control food and exercise. I hate group projects in school and in work because other people don't do it right. When I accomplish goals I rarely feel successful because I'm already looking toward the next goal to make it even better. I avoid group social situations and any situations with new people because it's either unscripted or I don't have advance knowledge of conversation topics. I have two calendars, one with specifics down to the hour for each week and one for everything in next two months, and a document with the food allowed each day and the exercise plan for the coming year.

On the other side though, if things feel or are out of control, everything comes crashing down. It's very black or white. If things are too loud and I shut down, or I come home to my roommate's having messed up the house, then everything else that I thought I had in control is gone: food, exercise, goals for the day. And I usually go to bed.

I strive for excellence in efficiency but I only let myself really get fussy when I'm refining a physical surface. I learned a lot from observing tool marks, so I like to remove mine, and make my stuff "look like it sprang from the head of Zeus." A chunk of brass goes through various dirty and ugly phases, but then, when it is free of all scratches, it kind of disappears and only reflects an image of the things around it. That's when it feels perfected to me. When making fiberglass molds, a good polish can more than double the lifetime. Once the surface is shiny, you can then go for optical perfection, but I try to avoid that, too, just getting close enough that only experts in a location with a grid reflecting will see the problems. In the auto-body trade, we hear "Hey, nobody gonna look at both sides at the same time!"

Math, of course, has perfect answers, and simple programs can do exactly what I want.

Before I enlisted in the Navy, I wanted everything to be perfect and precise. "Good Enough" was never good enough for me.

Then I learned that I did not have to be perfect; I only had to be better than every other sailor doing my job. This did not take much effort -- just be where you're supposed to be, when you are supposed to be there, and doing what you're supposed to be doing; make fewer mistakes than anyone else; stay out of trouble; keep your uniforms and workspace in order; and salute every officer and flag not encased.

It is much simpler than it seems, as there was not much by way of competition, even in a command of over 300 people.