Done is better than perfect
We’ve arrived at a moment in time, where we seek excellence in everything we do and how we portray ourselves to the world outside the confine of our homes, much thanks to the advent of social media, where more often than not the preference is to portray or depict all the highs, but less often the lows, which are equally a natural part of the cycle of life.
Photo by Jesus Kiteque on Unsplash
Technology and the progress of it, we’d like to believe, will in the long run aid us in making our day to day lives easier, reduce redundancies, and give us more time to chase our aspirations. For the most part it’s been a boon in this regard. If we look at technology like the microwave oven, steam iron, analog-digital conversion, most often, they’ve been of immense help to free up more time in our routine, to spend on other activities that help us get ahead with our lives. At the same time, we’re now engrossed in handheld devices which (often) lure us into a downward spiral where we end up immersed hours on end staring at a screen swiping up/down endlessly.
We’ve gradually, for better or worse, through these devices, begun to show only the perfect versions of ourselves to the world, thereby characterising an aura of ourselves, which ultimately might not conform to who we are, our ups and downs, the motions that we go through, the struggles we learn to overcome, and the day to day challenges we endure. Constantly being in exposed to visual highs of the people’s lifestyles, often make us look inward, ruminate about ourselves, and sometimes drive us down a path of self reproach/ loathe, how/where we’re falling short of what might have been, or what we’ve missed out on our potential.
Photo by Katka Pavlickova on Unsplash
This is most definitely a downward spiral, and neither gratifying not fruitful. Instead, it might be prudent to not really rely on everything you see around as true/ the full version of people’s lives, and maybe a fraction or even just a projection of how they see themselves to be.
Jaron Lanier makes a good argument about this, in some of his books including Who Owns the Future & some of his TED talks.
Getting things done every minute, every hour, every day, and focussing on the daily grind, and learning to enjoy engrossing in that routine, might give us more progress, and satisfaction, than constantly immersing ourselves in the mirage of outwardly perfection. Everyone is hurting, everyone has their struggles, and most of us get through it, by gong through the daily motions, the daily grind, and not getting sunk in the deluge of content that depicts only one side or one version of people’s lives.
Why do people chase perfection?
- The wish to showcase the best version of themselves to the world, sometimes as if no other version is socially acceptable
- Fear of being perceived as a failure
How do we overcome this?
While the world as it is today isn’t likely to change overnight, and we’d have to hold the creators of such platforms responsible to a higher standard, we’d at least for the moment continue to have the option to keep immersing ourselves in the outward portrayal of people, it might be more efficacious if we could instead look inwards, examine what needs to be done to get the next one goal accomplished, and set ourselves about to get doing. In simple terms just get on with our lives, not spending too much time on the external.
Will this be easy? Most definitely not!
It requires of us to hold ourselves in higher regard, and do the daily grind, and commit to keep doing small steps on our goals, our vision, our responsibilities, and chase getting things done vs. trying to do them perfectly.
We could most often come back and improve on something we have done, but the time lost obsessing over perfection is not something that would ever come back.
Chase the act getting things done, over perfection
Done is after all, better than perfect!
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Enjoying my hiatus where I introspect on the self, flex my cooking muscles, pen my thoughts on medium, and catch some sunshine every day.
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