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Perfectionism
      We may attempt to deal with anxiety through a search for the perfect response. We then spend our lives always on the verge of achievement but never quite attaining it. Our every effort always needs just one more little touch before it is complete. These little touches, becoming more and more minute, lead us into a deep morass of indecision. Our life is typified by a puttering with things just about done. We spend it working yet never achieving. However well done the task actually may be, we plead for just a little more time to check and measure. We do not realize that nothing is final, nothing absolutely completed, and that we humans can do our best, but no more. Unfortunately, for the perfectionist, the “best” is found not within himself but within external measures of accuracy and completeness.
ex Chapter 3, “Emotional Living” : 57
archive.org : link

 
      W. C. had risen from a maintenance foreman to vice-president, in charge of production in a large manufacturing company. Actively and aggressively, he had worked for the organization for over forty years. It was literally true that he “lived” in and for his job. Since he had been with the company since its beginnings, he had grown as an intimate part of it and seemed to feel a personal responsibility for the success of each production procedure, however small. At age 65, although still alert and vigorous, he was retired after the usual swirl of dinners, parties, and grateful well-wishing. Within a week, he could be seen puttering about his home and grounds, [358] pacing back and forth while grinding endless cigars into moist fragments. Whenever opportunity offered, he would question company executives about the outcome of plans made during his tenure. His interest was pathetic. Gradually, as he apparently became convinced that his retirement was actual and not a sort of bad dream, he became less and less active. The Country Club saw him no more and to inquiries, his wife would reply that he was “resting.” Within three months from the date of his farewell dinner, he was dead.
ex Chapter 12, “Maturity in Old Age” / Planning for Old Age
archive.org : link

 
Lynde C. Steckle, Problems of Human Adjustment (1949; Revised edition, 1957) :
 

Lynde C. Steckle (1907-90); title page describes him as Partner, William, Lynde & Williams; Psychological Consultants to Management; Painesville, Ohio
findagrave : link
 

20 May 2026