Expectations of perfection consistently occupy a large fraction of my mind. As the second daughter of an immigrant, I have always been astutely aware of the sacrifices made for me to be in the privileged position I am in today. I have a responsibility to take advantage of my mom’s decision to chase the “American Dream” and introduce better opportunities for her future family. I have to follow in my sister’s footsteps and become a high-achieving student at a top university. There is an endless list of things I need to accomplish, of standards I need to exceed.
Feeling inadequate goes hand in hand with perfectionism. And that is exactly the problem that comes with the Sisyphean struggle for perfection. Perfectionism is not the strive for excellence; it is the attempt to achieve the unattainable. Success is never met with happiness, it is met with the idea that you can always do more or be better. In my case, while perfectionism impacts me mentally, it also causes a myriad of physically self-destructive behaviors. This never-ending cycle seeps its way into every aspect of my life, from academics to relationships, and even to my time on The Fordham Ram.
While I wish I could write some heartfelt article about how the Ram has helped me outgrow my need for perfection, the role of copy chief seems to necessitate a continuation of it. Copy editing is the process of finding and correcting errors in written material. During my tenure on the Ram, coinciding with my entire time as a student at Fordham University, my eye has been trained to look for errors in everything. I read all of the articles submitted to the Ram every week. As such, I find hundreds of errors every week. From smaller ones, like an oxford comma, to larger ones, like a factually incorrect statement, I am constantly met with errors I have a responsibility to fix. Unfortunately, perfectionism is the only option for a role like this.
In some ways, every event in my life has probably led to me joining the Ram. While I was drawn to the role of copy chief because of the toxic traits of my personality, which is hardly a beautiful reason, I was still drawn to it. My job at this paper exists well within my comfort zone. The need to control every situation I am in is entirely acceptable when a page comes across my desk. An endless string of actions and behaviors made me the perfect fit for this job, even though those actions and behaviors are… less than ideal.
Despite this, the one thing that keeps me sane in the basement of the McShane Student Center are the people I am surrounded by. The Fordham Ram has an inexplicable ability to break me out of my obsessive editing state to have real and important conversations (and stupid and meaningless ones too). Thanks to Sofia and Allison for sitting behind the big desk and giving me all of their tech-related problems to solve so I can distract my mind for a few minutes. Hannah, my lovely production editor, thank you for reminding me that em-dashes have a space on either side because, although I try to achieve perfection with my edits, that is the one thing I may always forget. Thank you to the sports and digital teams for letting me regularly infiltrate their island and bridge the gap between both of our rooms. Every single staff member of this impressive publication reminds me that, while I can still catch mistakes in the print version of the paper, those mistakes do not take away from how proud I feel to sign off on the pages we produce each week. And maybe pride is a better feeling than perfection.
