Perfect, Perfection, Perfectionist

What do these words mean and have in common?  In the strictest sense of the word, perfect means something that is not flawed, and/or not broken, something that is whole, the sum of its parts like a circle or a period of time.  Actually, other than this, there is no such thing as perfect.  It is a concept and it is relative.  In other words, what someone thinks is perfect, another may not.  For example, grandparents may feel their grandchildren are "perfect," and the parents know better.  Or, someone who loves weather with a little breeze in the 70's may find the day to be perfect, whereas another person, who likes weather in the 90's, may feel differently, and yet another might find perfection in a rainy day.  Also, someone who looks perfect on the outside, may be broken on the inside.  As far as perfection is concerned, this is an ideal, a state of being, an idea or concept that doesn't exist.  Sometimes relationships, seemingly idyllic at first, are anything but that in reality.  An ideal is something to strive for, an ultimate standard.  By the mere fact of the definition and concept of the word, human beings are not perfect, nor are any living species. Georg Wilheim Friedrich Hegel, a German idealist and philosopher wrote, "The unity of Self is even as given in mature experience an imperfect fact."  A derivative of the words perfect and perfection, is the word perfectionist. A perfectionist is a person who has high ideals and standards and strives for over and above excellence.  Intrinsic to a perfectionist is the quality of never attaining the high goals they set for them self.  Therefore, a perfectionist becomes disappointed at not achieving his goals and feels like a failure.  We hear children sometimes feel their parents expected them to be perfect and then feel they did not reach their parent's high expectations, real or imagined. Perfectionists are candidates for one of the philosophies of Alcoholics Anonymous:  "progress not perfection."