Society lied to us about perfection. Now we pay the price everyday.

You may have noticed a lack of publications over the last month.

Or… Possibly not. Perhaps I’m overthinking this. In fact, I probably am. But maybe everyone thinks I’m unreliable. Or wait, does anyone actually even care? Ugh. What even is the point of anything anymore? (Cue slow descent into an existential crisis).

Yeah. The anxious voice chorus in my head is a real party-pooper!

Sitting on my laptop are 6 half-written, perfectly (lol) adequate, articles I could have posted. And scribbled across various notebooks and scraps of paper are 20 more ideas ranging from fuckin-love-it to what-on-earth-is-wrong-with you.

Most start out with the frantic excitement of “oh, that’s perfect!”, only to falter and be eventually discarded with a defeated sigh and a grumble that it’s not good enough.

Early in my career, someone told me “done is better than perfect”.

I didn’t understand it.

The word “perfect” literally means as good as it can get. Whereas “done” consists of the various states of completion from shockingly abysmal to, well, perfect.

Perfect is shiny and pretty! It glistens and glows. Done is utilitarian. It’s drab, it’s functional. So who cares about done when you can have ✨ perfect ✨?

Naturally, I scoffed and ignored the advice.

But over the years, as drafted emails went unsent, essays left unpublished, and un-launched projects faded into history, I finally understood what they meant.

Perfection is someone’s subjective take, sold to us as objective and absolute.

Perfect hair, perfect body, perfect face — yet every year, it looks wildly different from the last. Perfect scores, perfect careers, perfect lives — all arbitrarily defined by someone else.

(What even is a perfect score anyway? When did perfection have units of measurement?)

Yet, for many of us, the pressure to be perfect looms over our daily existence, casting a perpetual, glaring spotlight on the areas that we think we lack.

To live in a world ruled by perfection is to be trapped in a black-and-white universe where you’re either perfect or imperfect. And this world hates imperfection.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty tired of it.

So here’s my new take:

Perfect is a state of flawless done-ness. But as long as I’m living and breathing, I’m never “done”. So life doesn’t have to be perfect to be enjoyed. Work doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth publishing.

I know this piece isn’t perfect. But I’m posting it anyway.

See you next week. 👋🏼