PERFECTION

I love this:

“Writer’s block is another way of saying that the author prefers the ideal work still locked in the imagination than what they see coming from their keyboard.”*

I submit that it doesn’t just apply to writers.  If at any time we hold back from doing something, achieving a goal or following a dream,  it’s because we’re harboring an ideal of this thing we’d like to do, in our imagination, that is whole, complete AND perfect.  

This idea in our heads psyches us out because our first tentative steps will look absolutely nothing like what’s in our heads.  We recoil at our feeble, ugly, misshapen attempt.  Some of us will give it some time and try again, and again, until lo-and-behold, it starts to take form and see some semblance of that perfect thing.  

Most of us will not go back and try again.  Most of us will bask in the glow of that perfect thing that exists only in our minds and ignore the sense of profound regret that descends on our hearts.  Perfection is in the eye of the beholder and the mind’s eye cannot be trusted.  

True perfection comes from the doing, from something we have achieved and can look at and see. Perfection comes from taking action, again and again and again.
*How to overcome procrastination, and perfectionsm

Published on April 8, 2013 by Nigel Barber, Ph.D. in The Human Beast