Perfectionism is paralyzing
I am a recovering perfectionist. I don't think being perfect is a human quality. Perhaps aiming for perfection is a noble goal, but I think in most cases people aim for perfection for the wrong reasons. It took me a very long time to realise this, but I think my perfectionism came from deep self-esteem issues, feeling like my value as a human was only conditional, feeling like any mistakes I made were a reason to dislike myself. Feeling like the only way I could be loved and respected by other people was if I could be seen as someone who did everything right.
I think perfectionism ruins your life in 3 ways:
It prevents you from trying new things, stepping out of your comfort zone, facing your fears. Since you are only comfortable doing things that you feel like you are perfect at, you will never do anything new.
Perfectionism makes you unable to form real connections and deep friendships. Humans connect by being vulnerable and showing their rough edges. A person that is constantly trying to project a fake, perfect image of themselves never presents any real aspect of themselves that other people can feel an emotional connection with.
Perfectionism is driven by the inner belief that "I only feel valuable and secure as a person when I am doing things perfectly". Since we live in an imperfect world and are all imperfect ourselves, this is an impossible goal to ever achieve, and therefore as a perfectionist you will feel unloved, anxious and like a failure the majority of your waking hours.
I could name a number of possible causes for where my perfectionism came from: having low self-esteem in childhood, being raised by a perfectionist mother, living through a school system where grades were the only thing that mattered. But I don't think the source of my perfectionism is too important, it was only the initial spark. I think the worst part of perfectionism is how you end up in a self-perpectuating cycle.
A healthy non-perfectionist cycle:
"I don't have many friends, I find it hard to connect with people" -> "I should approach more people and open myself up more so people have something to connect with" -> "wow, there's so many people out here who appreciate me just as I am with all my flaws, and are willing to open their flawed lives up to me as well"
Instead, this is the cycle I ended up in for all my teenage years:
"I don't have many friends, I find it hard to connect with people" -> "I must not be good enough, if I just appeared more perfect people would want to be friends with me, I need to hide my flaws even more and become a more fake version of myself" x1000
Couple this with being terrified of making new friends, because approaching people involves the chance of rejection, which isn't a perfect outcome and putting yourself in any situation that might result in a non-perfect result is absolutely terrifying and must be avoided at all costs.
Basically, perfection is a recipe to become a completely fake, anxious person who is incapable of loving themselves or connecting with anyone else.
The good side is that perfectionism itself is fairly easy to break out of once you understand the toxic cycle you're stuck in and the negative beliefs behind it. The much harder part is breaking out of all the anxiety and negative thought patterns you've built up over years and years of being a perfectionist.