The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #236 - Thomas Curran

TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)

Melanie Avalon:
Friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation that I'm about to have. It is about a topic that back story on today's conversation. It was one of those situations where I saw the pitch for the book and I was just, I only had to see a second of the title and I was an immediate yes.

Melanie Avalon:
So I don't know about you guys, but I have personally for pretty much my whole life as long as this would be a thing identified as a perfectionist. I never really saw it. Well, I guess we can talk about that.

Melanie Avalon:
I feel like historically I didn't see it as a negative and then I probably started seeing it as a little bit draining and as a negative as far as like how intense I would get with focusing on things in life and the standards that I would hold for myself.

Melanie Avalon:
More recently, it has felt less problematic because I feel like I've been able to let go of some of the negative tendencies of it. In any case, it's something that I really, really identify with. Like I use it to define myself.

Melanie Avalon:
So when I saw the title of this book by Thomas Curran called The Perfection Trap, Embracing the Power of Good Enough, I was just like, yes, the psychology of perfectionism. Please, please, please. And then reading Thomas's book was so fascinating, so eye -opening.

Melanie Avalon:
Who knew? I mean, I clearly knew nothing about perfectionism. I had no idea that it was, well, A, so debated. B, that there were so many different potential manifestations of it and way it's been studied in the clinical literature.

Melanie Avalon:
Even though as Thomas talks about in the book, it's been kind of existing in the world of, quote, pop psychology for a while. But I learned so much about the potential different manifestations of it, what it means for me and for you guys, and also what it actually might mean for our world and the future and sustainability.

Melanie Avalon:
Like there is a lot to tackle here. So I am here today with Thomas. I am so honored to be here with him. He is a professor of psychology at the London School of Economics, and he actually did a landmark study on perfectionism that I'm sure we'll talk about in today's show.

Melanie Avalon:
And he has a TED talk about it that he also talks about in the book. So, Thomas, thank you so much for being here.

Thomas Curran:
Thank you so much for having me. That was a wonderful introduction.

Melanie Avalon:
I've been looking forward to this for so, so long. So many questions I have for you. But to start things off, a little bit about your personal story, you weave it in, you know, with different parts of your life relating to the different aspects of perfectionism as you talk about it in the book.

Melanie Avalon:
Did you always identify, because when I was just saying this right now in the intro, I was trying to think, I was like, well, when did I first, like identify as a perfectionist? So did you always identify as one?

Melanie Avalon:
Did you have a moment of epiphany? Were you realized you were one? Did you have a moment where you realized it wasn't potentially a good thing for your life? What was your history with that?

Thomas Curran:
Oh goodness me, I was definitely a latecomer to perfectionism, but when I look back and reflect on my childhood and young adulthood, definitely there's a basic anxiety underneath a lot of my experiences.

Thomas Curran:
I worried a lot as a kid how I looked, what I had, whether I was good enough. But I'm not sure whether those anxieties were channeled into perfectionism until later in life, when I somehow found myself in a, I suppose middle class professional, educated professional, surrounding high achievers.

Thomas Curran:
And suddenly that basic anxiety found its way into perfectionism and made me work really, really hard, but also contributed to a lot of mental health difficulties, which I'm sure we'll discuss later.

Thomas Curran:
But that was probably, I would say, the moment where I realized perfectionism was having a negative impact on my life, where those anxieties that I grew up with started to take over, pushing me into a lot of uncomfortable working habits, working evenings, weekends, doing work on my PhD dissertation at Christmas and finding myself just all consumed, I suppose, by work and all the rest of it.

Thomas Curran:
So I definitely, perfectionists, no doubt about that, but I definitely came to it later in life.

Melanie Avalon:
So that actually leads to a huge question I have. I want to lay down the foundation before I ask it. But as a teaser, because it's so interesting hearing you say that, because like for me with my perfectionism, like I said, it's literally the way, I mean, it's just the way I've felt for as long as I can remember.

Melanie Avalon:
I don't remember being any other way. Like it very much felt like it came from within me. So like self -oriented perfectionism. So it's interesting to hear with you that it was partly that social environment that seemed to kind of like activate it or catalyze it.

Melanie Avalon:
So like, do you identify more? And again, this is why it needed a foundational explanation because I'm using terms that we haven't defined yet. But like for you, was it more socially prescribed perfectionism?

Thomas Curran:
Yeah, definitely my perfectionism is social in its root and also social in its expression too. So I would say that there's definitely a high level of self -oriented in there, like self -driven perfection, but it comes from outside.

Thomas Curran:
So I felt a lot of social pressure to live up to really high expectations, which I then put on myself to push myself really, really hard. And so it's, again, as I said, I think there was a predisposition that I held when I was younger, but I think that that predisposition was waiting to be activated by the social world.

Thomas Curran:
And as soon as it was, it kind of exploded into some very, very unhealthy perfectionistic behaviors. So definitely social, social self, and there's another type of perfectionism, all these types of perfectionism, they don't operate independently, they also bleed into each other.

Thomas Curran:
And we're higher on one and a little bit maybe not quite as high on another, but typically if we're perfectionistic, we trend higher on most of them.

Melanie Avalon:
Can you go through the three? Because you're talking the book about, and what were their names like, Paul and Gord?

Thomas Curran:
Paul, Hugh and Gordon -Flaher are the two researchers who've done most of the heavy lifting in this area, although their ideas come from earlier theorizing by many cyclists, but particularly a cyclist called Karen Horney.

Thomas Curran:
But over many, many years, they've just interviewed perfectionists that people really talk to them and asked them what perfectionism looks like. And what's really interesting from their research is most of the single perfectionism is the quintessential over -striver, the really hard worker who pushes themselves well beyond comfort.

Thomas Curran:
Now that's true. Perfectionistic people do do that. And we see that time and time again, but it's not the full picture. So that's self -oriented perfectionism, perfectionism comes from within. But they also are seeing time and time again, perfectionism, people describe a social kind or form of perfectionism, where perfectionism is coming from the outside.

Thomas Curran:
So not only do they impose high self -set standards on themselves, but also they feel like other people are expecting perfection of them. And this is called socially -prescribed perfectionist's idea that other people expect me to be perfect and they're waiting two pounds when I've shown a weakness or made a mistake.

Thomas Curran:
And not only do we see a socially -prescribed perfectionism, we also see perfectionism turned onto other people too. So we need to look at the perfectionists that people, you'll often see perfectionists not only have high standards for themselves, but also high standards for other people.

Thomas Curran:
So, you know, if I'm hauling myself over calls to reach excessive standards, then you're going to do that too, right? That's only fair. So this is called other -oriented perfectionism. And these are the three core elements of perfectionist, time and time again in perfectionistic people.

Thomas Curran:
They're the basis for the measurement of perfectionism. And they're also the basis for our work at looking at whether perfectionism is increasing over time.

Melanie Avalon:
The three of them, they're all about filling high standards, the self -oriented that's coming from you, like your own desire to have these standards. The social is you feel like other people have these standards that you have to fulfill.

Melanie Avalon:
And then the third one, the other, that's you putting your standards on other people.

Thomas Curran:
That's right. Yeah. All of them have a consistent view, which is in a sense of deficit, we're feeling of not being enough, but they are just triggered and manifest slightly differently, depending on the dominant form of perfectionism at play.

Thomas Curran:
So if you are a highly self -oriented perfectionist, then you're going to feel a lot of self -criticism, you're going to put a lot of self -imposed pressure on yourself. If you're a socially prescribed perfectionist, you're going to experience a lot of those things too, but you're also going to feel a lot of social judgment.

Thomas Curran:
And you're going to feel like people are watching you all the time, and you're going to feel you need to please others. So there's a sense that I need validation from other people to really prop up my own self -esteem.

Thomas Curran:
And then I've oriented is really where a kind of what Freud would call projection. So this idea that I'm projecting my high standards onto you, because I expect myself to be perfect, so you're going to need to be perfect too.

Thomas Curran:
So these different types of perfectionism all have that same root of feeling like we're not enough, but they just express slightly differently depending on which one dominant.

Melanie Avalon:
So, you mentioned just now, like the negative effects and this idea of not feeling enough. How do you feel about people who categorize perfectionism rather than like these three versions instead into like a binary like good versus bad perfectionism?

Melanie Avalon:
Because you mentioned some of that dualistic categorizations in the book. And then last night, I was just randomly like Googling studies and different studies would like call it different things, but a lot of them would put it into basically two types, like a more negative perfectionism and then like a more positive perfectionism.

Melanie Avalon:
So how do you feel about that sort of categorization of it?

Thomas Curran:
This is a heated debate still going on in the academic literature. So my perspective on this shouldn't be taken as gospel. However, from my understanding about perfectionism, the many years I've done this work, and from my own experiences with perfectionism, I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as positive or healthy or adaptive perfectionism.

Thomas Curran:
These are kind of the terms that you'll see time and time again. Perfection is an inherently impossible goal. And it comes from a form of deficit, a form of lack, so that when we've failed and made mistakes or shown vulnerability, which we do all the time, that has a massive impact on our self -esteem, which plummets.

Thomas Curran:
We go in on ourselves, we're very critical, and ultimately it creates a lot of mental health difficulties that we see time and time again in the literature. And even when we succeed on the flip side, let's say we do something well, there's no lasting satisfaction that comes from those accomplishments because perfectionism will keep us pushing for more, keep us overcompensating for what we lack, the better we do, the better we feel like we're expected to do.

Thomas Curran:
And so it's an unwinnable game. There's no joy in the wins, and there's intense amounts of self -criticism and self -loving when we fall short. And so as a consequence, I don't think we can make a case that perfectionism is in any way positive or adaptive.

Thomas Curran:
And I think what we're seeing in positive and adaptive perfectionism is perhaps slightly different to what perfectionism's essence is. I think what we're seeing there is conscientiousness, meticulousness, diligence, and these things are very good things to possess, but they don't come with the insecurity that comes with perfectionism.

Thomas Curran:
Perfectionism is really insecurity fused with high standards, and high standards don't need to come with insecurity. And I think we have to make that distinction when we're debating whether perfectionism is positive or negative.

Melanie Avalon:
One of the studies I was reading last night, it actually was talking about, I should actually find it. It mentioned the terminology they were using. Let me just see, something I have right here. Oh yeah, here it is.

Melanie Avalon:
They were like dividing perfectionism into conscientiousness, perfectionism, which you just mentioned, and self -evaluative perfectionism. They said that came from neuroticism, sort of similarities. And so I guess the question there is distinguishing conscientiousness and perfectionism.

Melanie Avalon:
So when people are having these debates, do some people, when they're having these debates, not separate conscientiousness and perfectionism? It's hard to have the conversation when people are using different terminology and different definitions, I guess.

Thomas Curran:
100%. I can't imagine what it's like for people who don't work in this area to come to and try to figure out, it's hard enough for those who do research in this area to work through it. There's so many different terms and so many different perspectives.

Thomas Curran:
By the way, this is a very healthy thing for science. It's good to have debates and it's good for people to come to different conclusions. Social science and psychology as a social science is not hard and fast.

Thomas Curran:
It's not physics or biology where we can identify the etiology of things precisely. We're dealing with abstract constructs here and so at a certain level, we have to rely on abstract theories and ideas and yes, perspectives and opinions to guide us in our understanding of the topic.

Thomas Curran:
As I mentioned, my understanding of the topic comes from personal experience, but also many, many years working in the research, trying to figure out what on earth this thing is. Having done that process, I've come to the conclusion that I think we have to be very clear as researchers about what perfectionism is and differentiate it from similar characteristics.

Thomas Curran:
There's no doubt, there's a lot of overlap between conscientiousness and perfectionism. No doubt about that, but there's also crucial differences. It's the starting point. It's where those high conscientious, high standards come from that thinks important.

Thomas Curran:
If you start from a place of deficit and lack, which is where perfectionism comes from, rather than a place of active and optimistic wanting to improve to grow, which is conscientiousness. I think if we can get the starting point right, then you can begin to see how downstream effects of perfectionism can be exhausting, can lead to mental health difficulties, can be unsustainable ways of striving, where as conscientiousness, growth mindset, and all those, I guess you might call them positive things, because they come from a very active and optimistic place of wanting to grow.

Thomas Curran:
Well, their downstream effects are likely to be much more positive, much more adaptively, to much more long -term and sustainable forms of striving.

Melanie Avalon:
Like I took a personality test sort of recently and it was for the main, I should know this better, the main personality traits like conscientiousness, extroversion, introversion, neuroticism, like all of those things.

Melanie Avalon:
And I was 100% in conscientiousness which makes sense given my perfectionism identification. Could you be conscientious and not be trying to achieve perfect standards? I'm just trying to like get a better picture of this.

Melanie Avalon:
And like here's a thought experiment, not to throw two questions at you. Cause I think when we're talking about perfectionism, we're thinking about like work, like doing things perfectly and things like that.

Melanie Avalon:
But that idea of doing something to 100% is that idea of perfectionism. So like an analogy would be like, I want to be a kind person. Should and I aim to be perfectly kind? Like, otherwise what do I aim for?

Melanie Avalon:
That I'm going to be 97% kind. And like, does that make me a perfectionist?

Thomas Curran:
It's a recognition though. Perfection is a singularly unable to recognize that life is messy. We are imperfect people and we live on an imperfect planet and we're going to make mistakes because we're fallible.

Thomas Curran:
We're going to slow down and feel sometimes like things are too much because we're exhaustible. And occasionally there's going to be times where we just screw up and there was nothing to learn, nothing we could have done.

Thomas Curran:
Time is just simply having a bad day or we simply just took off the ball for that second that we made a mistake. These are things that are part and parcel of being human. And perfectionism and the perfectionistic mindset makes being human almost the hardest thing to accept.

Thomas Curran:
Whereas conscientiousness is different. It's about trying to do our level best. It's about putting in effort to and being meticulous to try to master things. Conscientiousness is almost like having a vocation.

Thomas Curran:
Your life's purpose is to try to master a task. My grandfather was a carpenter. I reflect a lot of his experience in the book because he was a very conscientious person, but he wasn't a perfectionist.

Thomas Curran:
He could leave his things in the world of other people to use and he could go home and not worry about it. And if somebody gave him a bad review or he would just made a mistake on the job, these weren't catastrophic things in his life, but perfectionist people are unable to have that kind of stillness and that acceptance because they are fighting against their imperfect humanity all the time, trying to conceal, hide those things that deep down we know are imperfect about us.

Thomas Curran:
And that's, I think that has, that is the crucial distinction between somebody who's perfectionistic and somebody that holds high standards or maybe conscientious. And it's really conscientiousness, fused with insecurity, which is perfectionism, but conscientiousness on its own is an eminently positive thing.

Melanie Avalon:
So if a person were trying to achieve, quote, perfect standards, but they are okay, not meeting them, they don't have anxiety about it, they don't feel hard on themselves, that type of manifestation would be conscientiousness, not perfectionism.

Melanie Avalon:
If they're not experiencing the negative

Thomas Curran:
Yeah, let me give you an example. We do many, many experiments in the lab. And one of the things we're really interested in is what happens when you put perfectionists in situations, situations of failure.

Thomas Curran:
What you see time and time again is people who are lower on perfectionism, in particular self -oriented, but certainly socially prescribed perfectionism too. If you give them a task and you tell them they failed, no matter how other, did you just say that you didn't quite reach the target or other people perform better than you, you see something really fascinating in terms of their emotion responses to that setback.

Thomas Curran:
Non -perfectionistic people are not very perfectionistic people, but yeah, of course, look, they've just tasted defeat. They're gonna feel at some level disappointed in that. Their pride might fall a little bit.

Thomas Curran:
They might feel a little bit of elevation in their guilt and shame, but it's fleeting. It's not lasting. They can come through that very, very quickly. In other words, they bounce back from that setback.

Thomas Curran:
However, people who are higher on perfectionism every single time you do this, their pride plummets in themselves. Their shame in particular spikes really, really high as does their guilt. And it stays like that for a long time.

Thomas Curran:
It lingers inside them. And that's the crucial difference. Perfectionism is really driven by insecurities, worries, doubts about other people seeing what they consider to be their shameful interiors.

Thomas Curran:
And the moment those interiors are revealed to the world, the moment we hear the mistake of the setback, the internal dialogue is how could you be so stupid? What were you thinking? And that ruminative brooding mindset can go on for days, weeks, even months depending on how big the mistake is.

Thomas Curran:
And that's the crucial difference. And we see this time and time again in the lab.

Melanie Avalon:
With the perfectionism and those experiences that you see in the lab, are you also ranking the people on other potential mediators that could lead to that manifestation? Their anxiety, independent of the perfectionism or their emotional intelligence or their...

Melanie Avalon:
I guess what I'm trying to get a sense of is how do we know the issues are coming from the perfectionism and it's not third -party character traits about the people that makes issues manifest from the perfectionism.

Thomas Curran:
These are really good questions. And the answer is in a lot of the work that we do, you know, you can try and control for what we think are important variables in those lab situations, but you can't control for everything.

Thomas Curran:
We don't know the background of participants in intimate detail. We can't possibly measure every other potential third variable that could impact on the relationship between perfectionism and self -conscious emotions.

Thomas Curran:
We try as hard as we can to make sure that the conditions are as controlled as possible so that what we see at the end can be as far as is within the bounds of the design of the experiment is perfectionism.

Thomas Curran:
But, you know, you're absolutely right. This is not just a legitimate question to be asked of our field, it's a legitimate question to be asked of every field of psychology and the extent to which we can say that x causes y has to be considered in the context of potential explanations.

Thomas Curran:
Having said all that, there is now a huge body of literature in our field that finds time and time and time and time again, very, very strong correlations between perfectionism and indicated a serious mental illness, things like anxiety, depression, self -harm, bulimia, image -related concerns, particularly body image concerns, self -conscious emotional responses to failure, which is the research I've talked about.

Thomas Curran:
And so, you know, correlation doesn't equal causation, this is true. But once many, many, many correlations tend in the same direction, we can say that something is happening here, that it's probably worth us paying attention to when it comes to perfectionism and its problematic relationship, which should be said with mental health.

Melanie Avalon:
And it's a little bit difficult because we're again using the word perfectionism when earlier we said there were three different ones that we are going to define it as. So like in those studies and when they find those negative effects, which in the book, by the way friends get the book because all the information and details and studies and everything is in there.

Melanie Avalon:
So you'll get all the data. So in those studies when they find those negative effects, how do they correlate to the three different types? And also, do they ever isolate the three different types and look for those effects?

Melanie Avalon:
So like if there's a person who's just self oriented, do they have those effects? A person who's just socially do they have those effects, which I know the answer to that one. And there's a person who's just other oriented.

Melanie Avalon:
Do they experience those effects?

Thomas Curran:
Yeah, this is what we do all the time. Although I would caution this is kind of a problematic way of doing this kind of research, because if you strip socially the variance that's shared between social, let's say social, and the self -oriented perfectionism, you just look at pure self -oriented perfectionism, then what you're doing is you're creating a bit of a straw man because there's no perfectionist at person that would only 100% associate with being a self -oriented perfectionist.

Thomas Curran:
A perfectionist, as I mentioned earlier, these forms of perfectionism can complete into each other. And yes, people tend higher on one relative to the other, but they've got a positive correlations with each other, which means if you have one, you're likely to also have a little bit of another.

Thomas Curran:
However, that caveat said, we do do the work, we look at these in the independent effects of these forms of perfectionism. And what you see is socially described perfectionism being the most extreme, the one that correlates most strongly with really quite serious mental health conditions.

Thomas Curran:
And I think there's no surprise, there's no surprise really if you've, socially described perfectionism is really about trying to please other people, at hyper vigilance for other people's approval and validation.

Thomas Curran:
And when we've screwed up or we make mistakes, particularly publicly, then the ruminative cognition, the brooding that occurs, the things that I've just mentioned in those experiments, left unchecked, that can create some really problematic mental health outcomes, particularly anxiety, particularly low mood, particularly depression and image related concerns.

Thomas Curran:
Socially described is very much not something that we would like to see in people as particularly at high levels because that can have some negative impact. Now, self -oriented is a bit more complicated because self -oriented can sometimes seem positive, like so you'll sometimes see positive relationships with self -esteem, positive emotions.

Thomas Curran:
You might see a negative relationship, small negative relationships with anxiety or depression. So on the surface, when you look at socially described perfectionism, sorry, self -oriented without socially described, it can seem ostensibly positive.

Thomas Curran:
But then when you look at the effects of self -oriented over time, you tend to see those relationships reverse. Now we start to see positive relationships, anxiety and depression over time. And then when you look at self -oriented perfectionism without taking out the impact of socially described, you tend to see much weaker relationships with those positive outcomes, even in some cases, positive relationships with more negative outcomes.

Thomas Curran:
So self -oriented is a lot more complex, but nevertheless, when you study over time, you tend to see some negative impacts come through. So socially described is uniformly negative. It has massive negative impacts on mental health.

Thomas Curran:
And then other oriented is a much less studied than the other two, but what studies have been conducted have looked at other oriented in terms of relational outcomes. So how satisfied are you in your relationships, at work, in your personal relationships, at work, in your friends, et cetera, et cetera.

Thomas Curran:
And you see time and time again, other into perfectionism, correlation things like interpersonal hostility, less satisfaction in romantic relationships, less satisfaction in professional relationships.

Thomas Curran:
And that can have an impact on things like loneliness and social connections. So that's what we know from the literature.

Melanie Avalon:
I remember reading in the book, you were talking about how self -oriented perfectionism did correlate in a lot of studies to self -esteem and happiness, but then also that there are these other issues as well.

Melanie Avalon:
It's interesting to hear that the timeline, how you were saying that it typically gets worse because I guess in my experience, although again, maybe I need to use different definitions or words, but like I said, in my experience, it was kind of like the timeline I gave earlier where I always identified as this growing up and then I feel like I did start experiencing negative traits, but then I feel like as I grew, like worked on myself and matured and maybe became more emotionally mature as well, I feel like it was like been the opposite timeline that you gave in that I've been able to identify the issues and work on them.

Melanie Avalon:
So it's interesting that it's more common to go the other way, that people tend to get worse with it. I think that's the best way to get rid of the negative traits.

Thomas Curran:
Well, it's interesting because it's very important to say that these effects are only when these tendencies are left unchecked. And from my own experience, it's the same as yours in some ways, but it took me to a mental health breakdown to realize.

Thomas Curran:
So there's kind of a curvilinear relationship, I think, that we might see in particularly people with really high self -oriented perfectionism. Where the initial stage is the sense that we need this, it has to be like this, and we have to push ourselves really, really hard.

Thomas Curran:
And I suppose tolerate the mental health difficulties that come with it. But it's only when we get to a certain point where we can't keep going and things feel like they're coming down, where we have to take a minute to reflect.

Thomas Curran:
And when we do that, we begin to see that actually the way we're doing things is unsustainable, is putting a great deal of pressure on ourselves, it's making us feel miserable and all the rest of it.

Thomas Curran:
And then you turn the corner. Certainly my story. But if you don't get on top of it, then self -oriented perfectionism can run away with you.

Melanie Avalon:
So many questions for you. The role of culture and environment. So because it seems like some, okay, like socially oriented perfectionism, for example, if you're just looking at it really casually and externally, it would seem that certain jobs and positions might encourage it more.

Melanie Avalon:
It would seem like lower ranking jobs would make people more socially prescribed because there's an external pressure literally forcing them into having to be a certain thing compared to higher ranking where maybe they have more independence.

Melanie Avalon:
So maybe that's not as much of a factor. That's what it would seem like on the outside. But then I'm wondering if maybe that doesn't relate at all. And it's literally your internal perspective of what people think of you regardless of status.

Melanie Avalon:
And then I know in the book, you talk about how the stress can actually be worse for people who are more quote affluent. What is the role of somebody's actual job and the society and culture they're living in?

Thomas Curran:
Absolutely. One of the things I wanted to do in the book was to take a slightly different lens to this issue. A lot of the things that have been written in the past about perfectionism are very individual focus, which is fine.

Thomas Curran:
But that's not the complete story. I mean, my research raised a very strong prominence on the back of research that showed perfectionism rising for everybody. And so, you know, that's not an individual defect or something that's happening in broader society that's making or pushing people to endorse these tendencies to a greater degree.

Thomas Curran:
And in particular, socially prescribed perfectionism, that's the one that's rising really, really fast among young people. So I think we have to zoom out a little bit. Of course, there are individual differences that people possess that mean they're more predisposed to perfectionistic tendencies and others and we shouldn't discount them.

Thomas Curran:
And of course, there are early life experiences, things like abuse and neglect, which are also important to this perfectionism story. Absolutely. However, in the aggregate, I think what we're also seeing is something significant that isn't talked about as much.

Thomas Curran:
And that's the society is becoming more pressurized society is projecting perfect ideals into the world through things like social media, excessive pressures in schools and colleges, the workplace as you've mentioned there becoming extremely pressurized and requiring excessive levels of work ethic and pushing and all the rest of it to succeed.

Thomas Curran:
And then of course, you know, you've got changing parents in practices and the proliferation of digital media, not just social media, but also TV, documentaries, billboards, all these forms of advertising that together conspire to create a society and a culture that kind of idolizes perfectionism that pushes us to set ourselves excessive expectations and ideals.

Thomas Curran:
And I think the reason why I make the point in the book that this is something that perhaps is coming for more affluent communities in it to a greater degree is that those are the communities where these standards and expectations are really intense and really fierce.

Thomas Curran:
And you see that and schools, colleges, but you also see that in the workplace too. So I don't think this the perfectionism spares anyone, but I do think it's a particular problem for those on the upper end of the social hierarchy.

Melanie Avalon:
It's crazy timing because while I was reading your book, the other show I was prepping, do you know the work of Dr. Loretta Bruning by chance?

Thomas Curran:
I don't.

Melanie Avalon:
She's not a lot on psychology, but in particular how our like, quote, happy hormones like dopamine and endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin, how they work, and how we relate to the animal kingdom. So basically how these manifest in animals versus us and evolution and all that.

Melanie Avalon:
She has so many books and her most recent book is called Why You're Unhappy. I think it's the subtitle is something about politics and biology. Her thesis, the reason I'm talking about it, her thesis is basically the polar opposite of yours.

Melanie Avalon:
So it was so interesting to be reading your yearbook and her book at the same time because the argument she makes is that we blame society for our unhappiness or our mental health issues, but really it's like the way we are.

Melanie Avalon:
Like, we're made to be driven by these dopamine drips and we're made to be unhappy when it drips and we're made to be happy when we get the boost. And like, that's the way it is in animals too, and that's the way it is in hierarchies with serotonin.

Melanie Avalon:
And that was like a long -winded intro to saying, how do you feel about people who say that this is just blaming society for our own issues that would be there regardless? And like, were these issues like, when did perfectionism start appearing historically?

Melanie Avalon:
Like, is it, I know you said it's increasing, but did it not exist in the past?

Thomas Curran:
Well, I mean, I haven't read the work, so I would have to respond to her specifically. I'd have to read in more. I mean, look, there are many people that would say, you know, this is completely individual, and we can just think ourselves happy.

Thomas Curran:
I mean, look, I come from a working class background, I grew up around poverty. There is a lot of that that comes into my thinking. I think if you grew up in those situations, you realize that, you know, we can we can say that it's up to individuals to pull themselves out of situations that they're in, but sometimes the situations are so dire that it's almost impossible.

Thomas Curran:
You know, I grew up with friends who had terrible, terrible situations that, you know, that I could not say that I would be able to have overcome. You know, we're talking here, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, absent, parental figures.

Thomas Curran:
You know, these are really tough social circumstances that that I think when we say it's just the individual, and it's up to you to overcome these hurdles or issues of neglect and abuse, I think that I think that that sometimes that misses an important, an important part of every, every human experience.

Thomas Curran:
And that's kind of this idea that, you know, by the grace of God, go I some sometimes we get lucky, and we are able to reach the top and be in positions where we have, you know, some kind of say, or we don't.

Thomas Curran:
And I think it's important for me as somebody who's come from that background to reflect on, you know, this isn't just about individual experiences, it's also a complex interaction between our circumstances, luck, happenstance, who we interact with where we come, what we have happened to come through the education system at the right time.

Thomas Curran:
There are all sorts of many, many factors that impact on our success, our health and our happiness. And to put it all on the individual, I think it's disingenuous. That's just, that's just my opinion coming from personal experience.

Thomas Curran:
I haven't read this person's work. So I'm sure that there is a strong evolutionary case to suggest that there are there are certainly natural impulses for people to feel like we lack something that we need to do more that we need to work hard on the rest of it.

Thomas Curran:
And I can certainly have that debate. But when it, you know, when it comes to what we know about society and inequalities that are present in society, and having experienced that myself, it's really difficult for me to fall down totally on the individual case.

Thomas Curran:
Now, my argument is, and this is the same argument as psychoanalyst going back decades, this goes to the history part of your question. Perfectionism isn't a new phenomenon. It's not something that has just emerged in the last 20 years.

Thomas Curran:
Many, many philosophers, psychoanalysts, sociologists, anthropologists have observed in all sorts of different places and cultures. And I'm very much guided by the seminal work of someone called Karen Horney, who essentially observed time and time again in patients that were seeing her back in the 30s, 40s, 50s when she was practicing.

Thomas Curran:
A consistent tension, a consistent neurosis, particularly in women who was born of something called internal conflict, conflict between the person we actually are, you know, the imperfect, exhaustible, fallible person we actually are, and the person society tells us we should be.

Thomas Curran:
And of course, those pressures and those conflicts were particularly heavy on women who were expected to hold ideals that were completely out of line with unrealistic. And over time, she saw this time and time again, this internal conflict time and time again, that she came to the conclusion that these were cultural neuroses, right?

Thomas Curran:
These are cultural tensions, tensions that were placed upon us by living in a society that makes us bend ourselves to the whim of societal norms. And as a consequence, a lot of the neuroses that she saw and the perfection that she saw came from trying to bridge the gap between the imperfect person we are and the perfect person we're told we should be.

Thomas Curran:
And that was the tension that was at the root of a lot of psychological difficulties. And I think if we take Karen Horney's ideas of that in a conflict to the present day, it makes a lot of sense that what we're seeing here is a disconnect between what we feel we should be in this society, this kind of the idealized version of who we should be and the imperfect person we are.

Thomas Curran:
And that's creating a lot of difficulty, a lot of tension, particularly on young people who are finding it much more difficult in today's society to live up to the ideal of the ideal person who they've told they should be in social media advertising or even their parents.

Thomas Curran:
And for me, that really is just as important part of the conversation as any individual impulse or evolutionary take on why it is we feel unhappy.

Melanie Avalon:
And with Karen Horney's work and that idea of, you know, it being these cultural like manifestations that we need to achieve, how far back in culture, like when did she think that first started?

Thomas Curran:
Well, Karen Horney was a neo -Foreidian, so she wrote a lot about a lot of critiques of Freudian psychology. Because she said that these biological drives that Freud described confine to the people that he was working with, i .e.

Thomas Curran:
northern Europeans. And actually, they may not exist in people from other cultures and other societies, which is what got her thinking about how a lot of mental health difficulties and neuroses are not just individually predetermined, that's to say, that come from basic anxieties that we're born with, but also cultural pressures.

Thomas Curran:
And so she was really dealing with a lot of the issues that the Freud was raising. And you can go back to the turn of the century. And then you can go back even further, looking at how philosophers and poets and people in popular literature talked about perfectionism back through the years.

Thomas Curran:
With a tale about two Gothic writers, Horvon and Poe, who wrote really vividly about the dangers of living life, trying to emulate perfectionistic ideals and how ultimately that can lead to a very empty and unfulfilling life.

Thomas Curran:
So, you know, and you can go back to the philosophers, Aristotle and all the rest of it, that also dealt with issues about perfection and divinity. And I think, you know, it doesn't matter how far back you go, there were people dealing with these issues around perfection, the attainability of perfection and how healthy it is to strive for perfection.

Thomas Curran:
But my book is really about what's going on in the last 20 years, which I think have created what we're seeing in the data, this rise of socially prescribed perfectionism. And that's where most of my ideas, I suppose, experiences, opinions and researches are centered.

Thomas Curran:
But yeah, I mean, this isn't a new phenomenon.

Melanie Avalon:
The reason I was thinking about the history of it is I was wondering if there were cultures historically where this didn't manifest at all because the culture just didn't create a culture that would encourage it.

Melanie Avalon:
And the crazy thought I had from that, although for example, and I know like you just said, your book is focusing on now, I'm just trying to create, or just think about ideas here. So like, do we think that there's perfectionism in cultures that we idealize as being free from the woes of modern society and humanity?

Melanie Avalon:
So like, will idealize the Native American culture or indigenous tribes or hunter -gatherers? Like, do we think there's perfectionism in those types of situations? And this leads to a different question I have.

Thomas Curran:
I don't know is the answer what would say is this we are living developed economies that have at some level reason to a level of development on the back of scarcity as to say that we figured out to create surplus value.

Thomas Curran:
And that has driven huge huge strikes in economic development it's in the wealthy world and developed countries we have it's a remarkable achievement of capitalism is no doubt about that we've accumulated vast vast amounts of capitalism what kept away more than even the early buying is could have ever imagined it is a vast success story and I suppose what we're talking about in the developed world is elements of degree you know degree of scarcity how much scarcity is necessary to to drive enough economic activity to meet the basic needs of people.

Thomas Curran:
The Scandinavian countries take a very different approach to the Anglo countries they both have market based societies they both operate a capitalist economy. But they don't do it in the same way and so what is tennis unit tend to see in America is its kind of full voltage capitalism.

Thomas Curran:
No government and everything is about economic growth where I was a scandinavian countries are some European countries say yeah you know it's a market is bought and growth important but at the same time it shouldn't come at the expense.

Thomas Curran:
Human needs and there are trade offs and it's important that we are social protections and it's important that we recognize that growth that we accumulate is reasonably shared so that most people can enjoy the prosperity that comes from it.

Thomas Curran:
Those are two different degrees of focus on growth more bigger better that mean we're going to see a lot more perfectionistic tendencies in those where capitalism is on hyperdrive versus those where there is a.

Thomas Curran:
Fire blanket around the excesses of capitalism that creates protections for people so that perfectionism isn't as necessary in those societies and you know. This is just develop what we live in so that's where my thinking is oriented because that is the society that we must live in now whether you know it's the same going back.

Thomas Curran:
Hundred of thousands of years I would argue probably not if you look at the you look at the map of GDP starts to just spike around the industrial revolution which means for hundreds and hundreds of thousands of years.

Thomas Curran:
Will it be a great societies where sustainability was the focus you know it wasn't what chasing surplus value. Will we were creating communities to survive that was self sufficient you know and I would argue and I have no data for this because there is no possible way to collect that but I would argue you will not see.

Thomas Curran:
New roses about whether we're good enough in those societies worries about whether we're doing enough for having enough of being enough. You know these societies round the premise that you know if we have enough than that's plenty and I'm not sure we see these excessive those of perfectionism in those societies but what I do know is that we do see a lot perfection in modern societies.

Thomas Curran:
Will we talking about degrees some societies you see more of it some societies you see less of it and it depends on it depends on where you are and I don't know if that answers your question but that's the way I see this problem.

Melanie Avalon:
No, it does. And the crazy question I had from it, which is not about just perfectionism per se, but it just got me thinking, because what I was trying to get to was, you know, are there societies where this perfectionism concept doesn't even really exist because of the culture?

Melanie Avalon:
And then I was just thinking, in general, does that mean there are other potential, and I don't know if you would qualify perfectionism as a personality trait, but are there other personality traits that we literally don't have a concept of right now that could exist if society was a certain different way, which like kind of blows my mind.

Melanie Avalon:
Or have we experienced the entire potential mosaic of personality traits that there can be? Or are there ones that we have no idea about because we just don't live in that society?

Thomas Curran:
It's a really good question. I don't know. Again, I don't know. It's a great question. Someone I've never really thought about too deeply. You know, there's so much we know about human behavior and psychology, but there's also so much we don't know.

Thomas Curran:
And I think it's really important to recognize that psychologists, neurologists, anthropologists, sociologists, all we have is a set of theories and ideas about how we think human psychology works. We could be wrong.

Thomas Curran:
We could be right. All we can do is do the research, present the data, make our arguments, and then move on to the next study. That's how science works and what happens in the future is unknown. And I think that's important for listeners to recognize, actually.

Thomas Curran:
You know, I think we can take a lot of social science at face value and we can read these wonderful books, so many wonderful books, and think that's the answer. But I think as you're doing in this interview, I think we should all engage with a bit of healthy skepticism and ask probing questions because it's really, really important if we want to get to the top of these issues.

Thomas Curran:
And people bring all sorts of experiences, biases to their work. No different from me. I wear them on my sleeve, which I suppose may be different to other researchers in the area. I'm very upfront about my experiences and how they shape the way I see the world.

Thomas Curran:
I'd say that's less true for other books and work in this area. But nevertheless, I do think it's important that we do maintain a healthy degree of skepticism. And what we know today might be very different to what we know in the future.

Thomas Curran:
Your question is one I can't answer, but I think it's a good one. And I think it is a good one to reflect.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, that perspective you have is overwhelmingly refreshing. And well, it's ironic to say you're the perfect guest for this show, but that's like the mindset that I just am so thankful to engage with people because I just think it's so important.

Melanie Avalon:
And so you do talk a lot, you talked about it now and you talk about in the book a lot about this, you know, capitalism, a supply side economy, focus on growth, you know, reliance on credit and debt.

Melanie Avalon:
Have there been studies, you also mentioned very briefly you dropped in the word vocation versus job. Is having, I'm meandering all over the place, this economy that we're in now, like you were saying, it does create this constant focus on work and having to be productive and working all the time.

Melanie Avalon:
And this is the bias I'm coming from because this is all coming from my bias as well. Like I love working, like it's like my favorite thing. So like when you were proposing in the book, you know, this idea of reduced workload or hours, I was like, no, I love working.

Melanie Avalon:
So my question is, does it matter or are there studies on perfectionism? Cause I know you talk a lot about studies about perfectionism and work and the negative interplay there and the negative effects of working too much.

Melanie Avalon:
What about people who enjoy working or people who, if you identify as a vocation rather than a job, is that kind of like opting out of the society narrative about work and then do you not potentially experience as much of the effects?

Melanie Avalon:
What are your thoughts on working, jobs versus vocations and loving work?

Thomas Curran:
You know what, again, it's a really good question. I'm not advocating, you know, a standard, everybody must now work 20 hours rather than 40. I think if you find work enjoyable, fulfilling, and it gives you purpose and meaning, then you should work as much as you want to work.

Thomas Curran:
Again, you know, this is my bias, but I come from a working class community where work isn't like that. You know, work is to make ends meet, work is to put food on the table, and there's not enough of it.

Thomas Curran:
And there's not to do those things increasingly. And so, you know, when we talk about work, when I talk about work, I reflect on work, you know, I reflect on my parents who were doing three, four jobs just to put food on our tables when we were younger and still struggling.

Thomas Curran:
You know, there wasn't any purpose or meaning beyond survival. And, and then we have to, so we have to be also really careful about that, that it isn't just the sort of middle class jobs that we enjoy where, you know, I'm talking about here.

Thomas Curran:
I'm talking about jobs for the people who are working themselves to the bone and still not finding that their ends make me. And that's just as important for us to recognize that work, when we work for survival is very different to what it should be.

Thomas Curran:
It should be about purpose and meaning. It should be about fulfillment. And that's why I advocate in the final chapter of the book something called Universal Basic Income, because that just flips the purpose of work on its head.

Thomas Curran:
Other than working for survival. Now, our jobs become part of our identity, part of our vocation, because when we don't have the sort of scarcity hanging over us, that we can push ourselves into areas where we find we have impact on the world, whether that being caring for other people, whether that be creating things for people to use, whether that be repairing people's piping or roofs or whatever.

Thomas Curran:
This is work now is unleashed because it gives us a sense of purpose and meaning of vocation. And that goes hand in hand with this idea of working less because what we're having now is going to be an era of AI, which is going to be complete disruption, complete disruption is going to take away millions of white collar jobs.

Thomas Curran:
And we have to reckon with that. Like, you know, how are we going to use these productivity gains that come from AI in a way that doesn't completely put millions and millions of people into poverty? Well, the way that we do it is through Universal Basic Income again, which is why I think it's such a great idea.

Thomas Curran:
But also, it's about, okay, this is going to take away work that's drudgerous, that's very difficult or arduous, and it's going to unleash us to do other creative things. And if we can take AI and it allows us to use our work in creative and innovative ways, then again, that's a very, very positive thing.

Thomas Curran:
And if, or if we can use it to work less and spend more time in our families and with our communities, that's also a really, really positive thing. I suppose what I'm saying is we have an economy that's huge.

Thomas Curran:
We have a lot of affluence and we've got a lot of growth to come, particularly with the advent of AI. And I just think we have to think smartly and cleverly about how we use that. And if people don't work really, really hard, that's up to them.

Thomas Curran:
Great. But that doesn't mean that we have to do those things because we have the technologies and the policies that are available to allow us not to. And if that means that we become happier, we live more fulfilling and contented lives, particularly for people at the bottom, then I think it's an eminently positive thing.

Thomas Curran:
And by the way, it will also mean we won't need perfectionism just to get by. We'll be driven by purpose and fulfillment instead. Look, you know, this sounds utopian, but the tools are there and they're being developed.

Thomas Curran:
It's just whether we use them to enrich the lives of people or whether we use them to enrich shareholder value. And that's a choice we have to make.

Melanie Avalon:
So in that hypothetical situation, because you just said how perfectionism, we would be driven by purpose and fulfillment instead. So do you think that that situation of universal basic income would equally affect the three types?

Melanie Avalon:
So for self -oriented, so people who have these internal standards of not feeling like they are enough, how does that external situation of universal basic income affect that core belief?

Thomas Curran:
Less so than the social absolutely, but the real issue that we're dealing with is the social because that's the one that's exploding and And I think that's the one we need to pay attention to Perfections in that route comes from a sense of not being enough of lacking in some way and that has been the engine of economic activity in the capitalist era It's scarcity is what's created to drive economic progress And I'm saying that we've reached the point in our economic development Well, we don't have to continue to do that Well, we can switch to a different way of driving innovation instead focusing less on growth growth growth growth growth for all costs and and more on human indicators of progress Whether we're happy or healthy or whether we live in longer lives and all the rest of it and part of that equation I think is universal basic income because as I said it flips our Reason for living in society on its head from survival striving to striving for purpose of meaning because our basic needs are Undepend by a universal basic which by the way is universal right everybody gets it.

Thomas Curran:
It's not doesn't discriminate and It frees us, you know You know, this is why by the way is advocating not just by people who come from the left Also people who come from the right because they realize that it really is has tremendous potential to drive incredible Innovation and economic growth.

Thomas Curran:
So so I think again, it's really about Perfectionism for me comes from living in the society in the society where we're told all the time They were not enough that we have to continually do more All right, that's what feeds those perfectionist in your overseas that feed the need to keep moving forward to keep driving to keep pushing That's what I'll be on comfort And a lot of that is socially prescribed and I'm saying okay, how can we how can we how can we take a slightly different approach to what drives people and Instead of driving them from below through, you know, this idea of you know scarcity driving people forward How can we take a different approach that that eradicates our scarcity and and frees us to pursue purpose and meaning instead?

Melanie Avalon:
Is there the potential, because people have made the argument that a reason we have these mental health issues in general and more chronic stress, and I don't know if specifically they talked about perfectionism, but I would include that in it as well, is because we're not as having to focus on our basic needs as much.

Melanie Avalon:
It frees up time to stress about other things. Basically, if you're literally a hunter -gatherer, you have to find your food. That's your focus. You don't have time to stress about these other things.

Melanie Avalon:
Is there potential that that situation could actually have the opposite effect where by taking care of our basic needs, now we just have time to stress about other things?

Thomas Curran:
It depends what the focus is. I'm saying in the book that for these things to work, we also need a radical shift in perspective. And that, by the way, that is the utopian part of the book. We've recognized that wanting, needing, craving, yearning for more is a kind of fleeting, very meaningless conditions that bring a lot of unhappiness, chronic unhappiness.

Thomas Curran:
And so if all you do by implementing something like universal basic income is implement a floor under poverty and do nothing else in society in terms of radical perspective shift, then of course, it may be the case that what you've described there is likely to happen.

Thomas Curran:
But the shifts that I'm describing, I think come at the same time as us recognizing that we're we haven't sides of economic pie where most of human needs can be met if that pie was reasonably shared.

Thomas Curran:
The reason they're not, the reason we still see incredible poverty, massive mental health difficulties, drug addiction, high levels of incarceration and all the things that we associate actually with poorer countries is because the economic pie is not reasonably shared.

Thomas Curran:
And we have a very lopsided society where the proceeds of growth go overwhelmingly to a very small portion of people. So these changes don't just come in independent of each other. The reason why I've tried to describe a whole perspective shift and a number of policies around that, not just one, is that all of these things really need to occur hand in hand for us to be able to live in a society where perfectionism wasn't required.

Thomas Curran:
And as I mentioned, the starting point for that wouldn't just be this one policy, UBI, but it be also a policy including reductions in inequality, being more growth agnostic about and being far more focused on human and social progress.

Thomas Curran:
Those things, I think, are major perspective shifts and priority shifts that also need to go hand in hand with UBI for it to be effective.

Melanie Avalon:
I know you literally just said they have to go hand in hand. Like, do you think a paradigm shift could lead to that situation in the economy? And, or if that happened in the economy, could it lead to the paradigm shift?

Melanie Avalon:
Or do they literally, they literally have to happen at the same time?

Thomas Curran:
There's going to be a point in time, I think, in the not too distant future, sadly when my kids are a bit older, where we are going to have to reckon with these issues because not because we're shooting past human thresholds that are creating a lot of anxiety, stress and perfectionism, but because we've breached some turning point in the climate.

Thomas Curran:
That means we have to reconcile with this focus of more, bigger, better. We would have to because something is going to happen that's going to displace millions of billions of people, which are going to create all sorts of difficulties for the developed world.

Thomas Curran:
There's a sense that there is something coming down the line at some point where we will have to rethink our emphasis and our focus. Until then, I am not necessarily overly optimistic that we are going to see significant change, but I think there is hope.

Thomas Curran:
The hope is that we recognise in time that we do need to think differently about what's important and whether human and social progress is at least as important, if not more important than economic growth, where we do realise that more doesn't always equal better, where it's really important to get on top of inequality because it's creating a drag on not just productivity, but also health and happiness through things like UBI, where we do have to take AI, which by the way is such an important innovation, so much potential to be extremely life enhancing, but we have to make sure that the productivity gains, again, are shared.

Thomas Curran:
All of these things, I think, are coming down the pipeline. All of these, as I mentioned, and all of these things can be extremely positive, but it's up to us as opposed to the society to decide that we're going to use them to enhance our lives, and we're going to rather than follow the path that we followed for the last 20 years, which is to try to make as much profit on the back of these things as we possibly can, whether we can actually work out how we can share the gains.

Thomas Curran:
So, that's my big picture, and this is why in the final chapter I tried to wrestle with what would a society where those things have changed look like. By the way, it's not a manifesto, it's not a prescription.

Thomas Curran:
I don't purport that any of these things should happen or could happen. I just say that as a reader, I want readers to think about what would happen if any of these things were to materialize. As a way of trying to, I suppose, cement the idea that perfectionism is just as much a socially conditioned characteristic as it is a innate or personal driven characteristic, because if we lived in a different society, which did different emphasis, then we wouldn't need as much perfectionism just to get by.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, the thing I'm most curious about in the thought experiment, because actually the idea of universal basic income doesn't feel as utopian to me as the psychology side of things, which, and this is coming from my biases and perspectives and everything, but I identify as happy.

Melanie Avalon:
Like I feel like I'm a glass half full, like I identify as an optimist. I feel very happy. But I think one of the reasons I feel that way is because I don't expect to always feel happy. So like, if I'm not happy, that doesn't really bother me.

Melanie Avalon:
I'm because I know that it's just kind of like a going back earlier with the different neurochemicals. I know it's like a roller coaster of dopamine drips. And so it's not meant to last in a way. It's supposed to be like temporary moments.

Melanie Avalon:
And then and then the next one and then the next one. And then I don't feel bad about that. Like, well, I do feel bad about that. Because I feel like society says I should feel bad about that. Let me clarify.

Melanie Avalon:
I feel like society right now says that we are seeking happiness in our goals, and then they don't last. And so we're never going to find happiness because we always need to just chase the next thing.

Melanie Avalon:
However, but if you understand that, then like, what's wrong living that way, where you're just, you're just going from like happy thing to happy thing. If you have like this broader picture. So what I'm thinking about in this situation that you're proposing is, will people always be driven by the next thing and growth?

Melanie Avalon:
Is that something that literally our brain can escape or evolve beyond? Or is that just the way our brain is?

Thomas Curran:
Yeah. I mean, there's a guy of arguments all the time with people within my own department who evolutionist psychologists believe this is just the way we're hardwired to grow and grow and grow and grow with no limits in perpetuity forever.

Thomas Curran:
There's a very reasonable argument to this, so that's the case with various different sources of data. But again, at the same time, if it wasn't involved tendency, then why is it only in the last minute period of the last 200 years since the Industrial Revolution, that we've seen this exponential growth and this push for more and more and more?

Thomas Curran:
Why do we see this earlier? Why has this only been a... When it comes to the entirety of humanity, why has it only occurred in a speck of time? Again, to my mind, the reason why this sense of needing to do more, needing to have more, needing to be bigger, better, has really sparked since that time where innovation was exploded, where scarcity was manufactured into people's lives.

Thomas Curran:
If you go back through the centuries, where capitalism started, it was really about appropriating land, creating artificial scarcity so that the commoners had to work for their subsistence. This is how capitalism began.

Thomas Curran:
And then of course, there was the energy era, which it took a lot of, which meant that work that was done by many, many people could be done by one or two people, which freed up spare capacity to drive economic activity in forward.

Thomas Curran:
And this drive for more, bigger, better, and this exponential growth curve of growth began with the advent of capitalism. But as I said, in a very short speck of time, and it comes to the humanity, so is it something that's high -browed within us, or is this just something that's culturally conditioned as a function of living in capitalist societies?

Thomas Curran:
I lean on the latter explanation, but I don't, you know, I'm not someone who's dogmatic about these things. I'm not somebody who would say that my perspective, the way that I read the literature or history is the right way.

Thomas Curran:
I just come down on that side of the argument. And as I write in the book, if you do come down on that side of the argument, then the solutions become different to what most people would think the solutions are, which is to say, we've got to work on this as individuals.

Thomas Curran:
I'm saying, yeah, of course, we've got to work on this as an individual course we do. But also, if we really want to reduce perfectionism as a societal level, then we're also going to have to look at solutions at a societal level just as much as we have at an individual level, which is why I finished the book looking, taking the sort of broader lens and looking at how we can use a slightly differently in an economy that doesn't need to grow at all costs.

Thomas Curran:
And, you know, that includes some of the measures that we've discussed. So, you know, this has been some of the questions that you've asked have been absolutely incredible. And this is exactly the sort of debates that we should be having on these issues.

Thomas Curran:
I just take a slightly different perspective to most other people, but I think that's good. I think it's healthy to have different opinions.

Melanie Avalon:
I'm so genuinely enjoying this. And to be completely honest, I don't typically engage in many conversations about the economy and things like that. And it's not because I don't care. It's because it's just not something I think about and it's not something I get.

Melanie Avalon:
I think it would just bring like more stress into my life personally. So I just, I kind of like disengage, which kind of feels lazy. But what I was gonna say about all of it is, I'm so fascinated by this perfectionism concept.

Melanie Avalon:
So it really got me engaged in all of the discussion and the narrative. And so this was like the, what's the word? Like a gateway drug that like got me into thinking about the economy stuff, which I really actually appreciate.

Melanie Avalon:
And are there examples of countries who have made shifts in paradigms that have affected economic changes and how it relates to perfectionism or happiness and what have we seen with that? Like is it evidence that this might work?

Thomas Curran:
We don't even have to look at different countries, you just have to look within our own countries like America and Britain. It's not so long ago that we had a very different society, much more equal societies.

Thomas Curran:
This was kind of the post -war consensus of the New Deal in the US, where the economy looked really different. Society looked much, much different. Look, there were massive problems, of course, there's no doubt about that.

Thomas Curran:
But at a broader level, you could raise a family on one income, house, car, kids, no problem. There was opportunities, economy was growing at a really healthy rate. So there was opportunities not just to get jobs, but also ascend within jobs and professions.

Thomas Curran:
And this was, by the way, encouraged. And this is kind of the forwardest idea. And there was plenty of capacity, suppose, for our parents' generation to really, if they worked hard, if they put the effort in, to ascend social status.

Thomas Curran:
This is the great, this is the affluent societies, according to the bird, the growing middle classes. We don't have to look at different countries tonight. You can have different approaches to how you manage an economy.

Thomas Curran:
That's changed, of course. Now we don't focus on the middle, we focus on the top. And everything is geared towards enriching those at the top, because we believe that the money will trickle down. And the size of the pie is way more important than how it's distributed.

Thomas Curran:
And of course, created some extremely good outcomes for a small proportion of people. But it's created stagnating living standards and difficulties for many others, and particularly young people. So we don't just have to look across countries.

Thomas Curran:
We can look within our own countries to see that there have been times when things are different and we've had different focus and emphases. And as a consequence, to my mind anyway, you will have found far less perfectionism in our parents' generation than we did in young people today.

Thomas Curran:
In fact, I don't have any empirical evidence for that. But the way in which Baby Boomers look at young people today with complete astonishment tells us that we're very different people. And our characteristics have fundamentally shifted in ways that are really profound.

Thomas Curran:
So it isn't just about looking at different countries. You cannot call us looking at different countries in Scandinavian countries. We have a big welfare state, they have a lot less inequality. And there's a massive safety net.

Thomas Curran:
So you can look at those countries, European countries, follow a similar model. Even in Canada, if you go to Quebec, for example, you tend to see more social democracy in action. And as a consequence, that does have an impact on levels of perfection, actually.

Thomas Curran:
That is one where we do have data, a lot lower levels of perfectionism in Quebec than anywhere else in Canada, the US, or the UK. So it's not just about, is there a system or is there a society where there's no perfectionism, really?

Thomas Curran:
Well, no, there's no such society in the world where you'll see that. But as I mentioned earlier, it's all about levels and degrees. And you have some societies where perfectionism is less needed, and other societies where it's really needed.

Thomas Curran:
And I think that's, I suppose, the crux of my book. That's what I'm trying to argue that this is just as much a cultural phenomenon as it is a personal phenomenon.

Melanie Avalon:
How do you think that realistically is going to continue to evolve and manifest the role of AI in all of this? And what if we end up in ultimately some sort of virtual reality, assuming we're not in one right now?

Thomas Curran:
I, as I said, I think AI, social media technology is such a powerful thing, particularly in the green -growth era where we do need growth to be driven by things that don't extract and cause a great deal of pollution.

Thomas Curran:
The technology is at the forefront of that. However, you have to be a bit careful with it, because we want these things to be life -enhancing. We want them to meet human and social needs. You know, virtual reality, social media, these things can be really powerful at bringing people together around shared interests, social support, meeting people offline.

Thomas Curran:
There's a sense that these things, tools can be really powerful in terms of human experience. If they're used for those things, if they're used for social comparison, consumption, and just to create a sort of aura scrambled reality into which targeted advertising for us, that is not necessarily a reason for these tools to be used.

Thomas Curran:
So we just have to be careful about how they're used. I think that's important. It's not about throwing the baby out of the bathwater. Now, when it comes to AI, again, it's such a positive development.

Thomas Curran:
It can create so much economic activity in growth. It's going to drive a lot of growth, and it's going to take a lot of work away from us, undoubtedly. I mean, that's already happening. Now, the question is, what do we do with that work that's been taken away from us?

Thomas Curran:
Do we just use it to free up that time to be given more work to do? Because that's one way we could use it. Are we going to use it to eradicate our jobs altogether, in which case, you know, that's going to be really problematic in terms of demand in the economy?

Thomas Curran:
Or are we going to say, okay, these tools are really powerful, almost too powerful, and that we have to make sure that they're used responsibly, and that we use them with a social conscience, and that's to say that it's going to free up productivity.

Thomas Curran:
Those productivity gains should be shared. It should allow us to release us from work, to do more work if we want to, no problem with that, but also to spend more time in our families and communities if we want to.

Thomas Curran:
I think there has to be some kind of democratic oversight of these technologies, because if there isn't, we really are into a dystopian world. But if there is some democratic oversight of how these technologies are used, and as it can, just like social media, just like virtual reality, they can be very, very positive for human development and progress.

Thomas Curran:
But you know, that's a say, we have to use them with a social conscience.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, I think what will be so interesting to see, I was thinking about this actually yesterday, because I was using chat GPT to write a contract. And I was thinking about how, like growing up before AI, you really had to create, you had to like create things yourself, like doing the research.

Melanie Avalon:
And then if you're a perfectionist, you know, try to create this perfect thing compared to engaging with AI, for example, I'd like create this. And then it just creates it as almost as perfectly as it can.

Melanie Avalon:
But then I still have the tendency in me, like it gives me back what it gives me. And then like, no, I need to, you know, make this better and perfect it. So I'll be really curious, like people growing up with that, you know, this basically instant button access to almost, if not perfect manifestations of what they're trying to create.

Melanie Avalon:
How will that affect people's perfectionist tendencies? Will they become less because now they can just create the thing needed? Or will they become more because now they're just trying to make it better and better?

Melanie Avalon:
I guess it goes back to like, I mean, so many things, nature versus nurture. There's a lot there. I'll be really curious to see what happens is my point.

Thomas Curran:
It's exciting. It's exciting. It is exciting.

Melanie Avalon:
And where have you landed today with your own? Because you take readers in the book through your journey. And I promise we're wrapping up. I won't be really respectful of your time. Especially after writing the book, did you have massive evolutionary shapes in your own perfectionistic tendencies?

Melanie Avalon:
How are you today?

Thomas Curran:
It's a journey. I mean, I still am a perfectionistic person. There's no doubt about that. But the book has been really rehabilitating, I suppose maybe that word, rehabilitative, in some ways in terms of perfectionism, because you can't really be a perfectionist and do something like write a book or make a documentary, do you know what I mean?

Thomas Curran:
Or start up as a company. You have to at some point be willing to let it go. That's what the perfectionistic person really struggles with. And so through the process of writing the book, it really has taught me a lot about what perfectionism is, but also what's important when it comes to overcoming perfection, which is basically letting it go.

Thomas Curran:
At some point, you have to accept that it's good enough and you have to put it out into the world and you have to... We live in an information age, unfortunately, that's just the way it is. Someone's going to have to say, and they're going to like it, they're not going to like it, and you're going to get good, bad feedback, and that's just the way it is.

Thomas Curran:
And I think your perfectionism will tell you, well, if you get really bad feedback, that's going to be catastrophic, right? Because that'll say something that's about your ability as a writer and academic.

Thomas Curran:
But actually, it's complete nonsense. That's not how it works at all. You put something out into the world, somebody doesn't like it, and it's nowhere near as catastrophic as what you think it is. And that's the lesson that comes from letting things go into the world.

Thomas Curran:
And it doesn't have to be like a massive thing like a book, you just be a presentation. Just put in your hand of doing a presentation at work and go through the anxiety that comes with maybe not being the most polished thing ever, but nevertheless, you did it.

Thomas Curran:
And you put it out there, and now you can learn and grow and develop. And so that for me was the biggest lesson of the book, was not just writing it, which was hard enough, but letting it go. That's like taking a sledgehammer to perfectionism.

Thomas Curran:
So I still have moments where my perfectionism takes over a little bit, but I'm able much more to reflect on the bigger picture. And like you said earlier, grow and become more aware of the problems with that kind of self -critical mindset and check myself every time I start to fall into it.

Thomas Curran:
So yeah, it's too many of you listeners. Perfectionism will hold you about way more than push you forward. So don't listen to that in the voice, get something done, put it out there into the world, and learn, grow, iterate through it.

Thomas Curran:
Those are the most important things.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, I love that so much. I am all about the letting go. And I can definitely see it in my own journey with, even like with this show, looking back on how I handled when I first launched it, like the first episodes compared to now.

Melanie Avalon:
And I still love it and adored the exact same and want to always improve it. But the amount of stress I had in the beginning about getting things perfect is just ridiculous. So, well, this has been so amazing.

Melanie Avalon:
Your book was just fascinating, so eye -opening, cannot recommend enough that listeners check it out. We'll put links to it in the show notes. Are you writing another book now?

Thomas Curran:
No, I'm not. I'm taking a bit of a break with a young child.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, is it a new, new?

Thomas Curran:
Well, not that new, that year old now, but...

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, that's new. That's pretty new.

Thomas Curran:
Yeah, pretty new. So my next year or so, I'm going to focus on being present for my child, hopefully children. And then who knows? Yeah, like in the future we'll see if there's another topic that I'm particularly interested in and maybe I'll write another book, but for now I think it's about enjoying life a little bit.

Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. The last question I asked every single guest on this show, and it's because I realized more and more each day how important mindset is. So what is something that you're grateful for?

Thomas Curran:
Now I'm definitely grateful for my son and my partner. I'm just wonderful parts of my life that I don't know what I would do about. So I would definitely say in my family, I'm most grateful for, but I'm also grateful to incredible number of people that have helped me on my journey, in particular, my PhD supervisor, who's unwavering support is the reason I'm here, my mum for pushing me to go to university when I really didn't want to.

Thomas Curran:
So much, so, so much I'm grateful for. But yeah, I suppose if you want me to pick one thing, it would be my family.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, I love that so much. And I am so grateful for the work that you're doing. Like I said, I was so, so excited by the topic. And then just so grateful for all of the research that you're doing and awareness you're spreading.

Melanie Avalon:
And I'm really, really grateful, as you said, all throughout the show, this perspective you have about engaging with critical thinking about things and having discussions and debates and understanding our biases.

Melanie Avalon:
And I just really appreciate that because, goodness knows, today in our world, it can be really hard to talk about things with people. But I just think it's so important. So thank you for everything that you're doing.

Melanie Avalon:
I'm gonna eagerly follow your work. And if you write another book in the future, I'd love to have you back on and talk about that.

Thomas Curran:
That's wonderful. Thank you so much. And this was honestly such a lovely interview, some amazing questions, stuff that I don't get asked often and has certainly made me introspect and think about my own perspectives too.

Thomas Curran:
So this is a really nice interview. Thanks for having me.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, thanks, Thomas. You're the best. And enjoy Canada. Thank you. Bye.

Thomas Curran:
Bye bye.