The perfection bug

Writing after a long time makes things extra difficult. But here I am, writing about perfection! The little perfectionist in me wants to stop writing and go back to just enjoy other content. That’s the easy way out.

It was my father who always insisted on doing things “extra correctly”. As an example, I “learnt” that it was bad to make typos and that other people would “look at my content and just toss it aside with contempt”. This twisted view of the world made me see things exactly like that. Growing up, I viewed everything in life through a perfection lens and anyone who was imperfect looked like a loser to me.

That was me before getting a job.

Once in the job, I started looking at others and how they did their work. Many people fit this description of “loser” that I made myself believe. But as I observed the people and their successes, I began to understand that perfection was not the measurement for success. It is just a good to have, but at the end of the day what’s more important is that you get the work done at a level that is good enough for the stakeholder, given the amount of time you had to complete it.

It took a lot of time, but soon I became more comfortable with doing things “less perfectly” and being satisfied with it. You might think I’m slacking off, but this isn’t about being lazy. It’s about writing an article and publishing it vs writing it and keeping it in draft because I think it isn’t ready. But it never will be.

I’ve realized that there’s no end to perfection. Everything you do will be imperfect when you look at it in some angle. In making a song cover video, I might take pride in the perfection of the music and my vocals, but anyone involved in videography could say my video is rubbish. I’ve come to accept that there’s only a few things I can truly be good at, and so I focus only on the things that I can control and try to make it “good enough”.

At the end of the day, both these ideas have helped me. I learnt that its good to be perfect in some situations, and its good to let go in some situations. What matters more is knowing which is which.