Sonnet No. 2

Perfection

I had two weeks to fix a mess I made

A single wrong word in our group’s video

In my memory, it just cannot fade

Should I correct this or should I let go?

It is our group research presentation

Our panelists will watch, none should be wrong

Its quality should of mere perfection

But why did I took me so very long?

I thought of my friend who will be bothered

He will be edit again, just for one word

During his first edit, he got so troubled

Should I mess it up with one more record?

A week before defense, I now shall act

I recorded myself for one more time

I’m done around midnight, to be exact

Waited ‘till it’s silent, it took some time

But with my conscience, I made compromise

I will not force my friend to edit it

The one we had is already precise

He shall only edit if he sees fit

I guess I just calmed the voice that I hear

After all, that mistake shan't cause no fear

Reflection

    There are some people that I say that I am perfectionist. Well, lately, I no longer see it in myself, but there are instances, like this, where it seems like this part of my personality resurfaces. Before this begrudgingly difficult emergency remote learning setup, I really value academic excellence to the point that I target perfection with my outputs and performances, but I make sure that it is only me that will be a victim of my perfectionist behavior.

    However, in this case, I am really anxious about our research defense. There is this “itch” that I would like to go off, which, I guess, was only possible if I corrected that little mistake. However, I do not like to bother my groupmate just to correct that little mistake that I made. So I made a compromise by scratching that “itch” through recording a correct version, but procrastinating by leaving the decision to my groupmate if he will correct it or not. Nevertheless, it’s just a minor mistake and it’s correctly stated in our paper anyway, which is more important.

    Reflecting on this, I realized that I still value perfection and satisfaction regarding small, non-serious matters at a personal level, but if these small, non-serious matters would affect other people, I begin to think on whether I should give importance to perfection and satisfaction or to respecting their time. With matters that involve other people, I tend to procrastinate, delegate, and leave the decision to them.