Perfection

As I was clearing through my emails this morning, I opened a newsletter from a friend I met earlier this year. Whenever he publishes a blog post to his substack, I get it straight in my inbox. This made me think... He is the one who inspired me to make my own part of the internet, The Gradual Loop, where I just write to get things out, document for myself for a later time, or just ponder life as it happens. However, when I read through his post in my inbox, I realized that I haven't made any posts aside from the very first.

I worked hard on that first post, trying my best to make it as close to perfect as I could. It ended up getting about 4 clicks/reads. Most of which came from me sending the link out to family or friends. When I realized I hadn't posted again, I began to think about the effort it took to get the words from my mind to the internet for those 4 views. Then it hit me... I was chasing perfection in that post, which was time consuming and a bit tiring. For it all to result in a small amount of views, I think I was upset. I forgot about the reason I even started this - to have my own little piece of the internet that is mine. Just mine.

So here I am. Writing a not perfect, probably not even good post. And I am enjoying it. Getting thoughts out of my head and onto paper, or in this case a web page, has such a freeing effect to it. Too often I find myself chasing perfection instead of just getting things out there, creating, or doing something I have always wanted to. The fear of falling short or not having it just right has kept me from doing many things in the past. Now, with this post, I hope to break out of that and just start doing. Doing the things I want, not to do them perfect, but just to experience them.

There is a saying that 'Perfection is the enemy of good'. And that is something I tell myself and practice when it comes to my work as a software engineer. Yet in my personal life, I let perfect dictate what I do or don't do, and how I feel after I do something. From now on, I will be trying to just do things and not worry about getting it perfectly right. So go out there and don't let 'perfect' stop you from experiencing, doing, or creating things, cause that's exactly what I'm doing now.