The First Virtue
columnist: Nick Flint

Topic: Social and Cultural Issues
Perfectionism and Procrastination vs. Courage and Integrity

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Nick Flint discovers new understanding in what respect that procrastination is the moral antithesis of integrity.

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by Nick Flint
(Libertarian)
Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Please permit me to define my terms, so that the following observations may be understood:

Perfectionism: One's irrational expectation that the result of one's effort must be right, correct, without error, unassailable, or perfect.

Procrastination: The repeated delaying of the pursuit of a value or a goal.

Courage: The pursuit of a value or a goal regardless of a real or imagined danger against attaining or keeping it.

Integrity: One's words and actions follow logically in pursuit of values. One's state of consciousness is devoid of logical-emotional disintegration. In other words, with regard to values and goals, a person means what they say, says what they mean, and does what they said (or thought) they would do.

Value: That which one acts to gain or to keep¹.

An important note about these definitions is that a person might choose irrational "values", that is things they consider a value, which are actually not a value to themselves, others, or society. These four words as defined are amoral, which means that they can be used by men acting better or worse than their natures. I'm interested here in discussing them in a moral context, in the pursuit of rational values.

Recently I was quite surprised by my discovery - upon fully understanding the nature of procrastination and integrity - that the existence of one makes impossible the existence of the other. If a person says (to themselves or to others) that they will do something, then does nothing, that demonstrates lack of integrity. That also is a symptom of procrastination. Therefore, if a person is a procrastinator, they can make no claim to integrity, with regard to their values or goals in life.

Consider literary characters of Howard Roark  and Peter Keating, from Ayn Rand's novel, 'The Fountainhead'.  Roark was the icon of integrity (of one's values leading to actions), and Keating was the icon of copying (others' values), the procrastinator is somewhere in the middle -- knowing he has something valuable he should do or achieve, something he considers good, but does nothing about it.

I could think of only three reasons why procrastination is justified: 1) one doesn't value the action or goal highly enough to self-motivate the action, 2) one fears the achievement of that value or goal will lead to rejection, harm, or destruction at the hands of others, or 3) one will feel insufficient if the goal is not achieved as expected, or rather one fears that failing will result in being condemned or ridiculed. Essentially, you fear success, fear failure, or you don't value a goal highly enough.

Integrity demands that you define clearly your values and your goals in life, so that you can get on with living. Integrity makes it possible to shove aside or discard anything not related to those things about which you care deeply. Integrity means when you see something is a value, that you go ahead and pursue it toward the goal you set, regardless of what others may think or do. If it is immoral for a person to ascribe your values, then surely it is immoral for them to force you to relinquish those values which you have gained, or for them to try to prevent your pursuit of those values for which you have come to desire.

A person of integrity doesn't pursue values because he's pressured to do so. Rather, he simply enjoys doing for its own sake, and looks forward to achieving the goal, regardless of how imperfect the first attempt might be.

A perfectionist is always trying to learn a million ways to do the job right, to avoid every pain' of achievement possible, and thus never begins his journey.  This self-proclaimed perfection is then ironically manifested over time in the form of procrastination.  As procrastination wipes out integrity, does it not then wipe out the validity of someone's claim they are perfectionists?

Moral courage is required for integrity. Courage can be built by asking those who would stand in your way why they feel the need to do so. Ask them earnestly, but don't accept their judgment as final without thinking it through for yourself.

And here's another aspect of integrity: Integrity must be protected, and it is not a virtue of a moral coward. Moral cowardice involves permitting one's values to be attacked while remaining silent.  It results in the loss of values when one does not act to repel the attack.

So it seems that when it comes to your values and goals in life, if you choose courage and integrity, then perfectionism and procrastination will naturally melt away. And the next time you start to procrastinate, just say to yourself "It doesn't have to be perfect; it just has to be."

¹Rand identified that the unchosen cannot be a moral value for a person, although it may be a social or objective value.  One's life must be considered valuable, before a person will act to gain and keep it.  Committing a psychological fraud by pretending you value what others want you to value diminishes your life and happiness (and self-esteem) over time.

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2008 Nick Flint, all rights reserved.
Published: Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Last modified: Thursday, July 24, 2008

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