It's funny how I find wisdom in words sometimes when that same wisdom has been visible by other means. There are so many settings where I seek wisdom in my daily life. Usually I try and absorb it from people I interact with. Lately, I've found it more often between the covers of a book or in articles I read online. Within the last two days, I've encountered the following phrase twice, and I find it fascinating since it's been in places I look for wisdom often. The phrase is, "Perfect is the enemy of the good." You've probably already heard it. If you have and you think, "Of course, that's obvious," then you didn't need the lesson that I did. For some reason, seeing it summed up this way is good for me, and had an impact.
I cannot count the number of times I've not done something because I didn't think I could do it to my satisfaction. Just this evening I mulled over working on my finance app, but kept deciding against it since I was intimidated by the amount of legwork it would take to really get it right. The fact of the matter is, I already have a working prototype. For the most part, it works pretty well so far. It doesn't do much, but it's only the product of about five to ten hours of work. Obviously that's not going be perfect yet, and I know that even if I put five thousand hours into it wouldn't be perfect. Instead, it would be right in some ways and wrong in others. Without putting in the time, how would I know?
Studying martial arts has taught me that perfection is not achievable. Time and practice is what it takes to be better. You just have to commit to keep going, keep showing up, keep putting in the extra work. It will be discouraging at times when you don't feel like you're getting the technique, or you aren't connecting with the lesson being taught, but being on the mat and frustrated is better than being home wondering.
I've suffered from this attitude with my writing as well. I'm constantly intimidated by failure to produce something perfect on the first try. How unrealistic that is! I should stop doing that. I should produce writing that is good and able to be critiqued. I should write more often and on various different efforts. It's true, now that I'm a father I don't have as much time to devote to my writing, but I still enjoy it from time to time, and there are some projects that Shawn and I have going that I really do want to finish in my lifetime.
In short, I suppose I want my creations to be great, but good creations might be better than none at all.
I'm reading Steve Jobs' biography right now. I like it so far because it's not just a book about Steve Jobs, but all of the people that revolved around his life. People like Steve Wozniak and Sir Jony Ive all played a role in helping him create. I'm sure that in his time, Steve Jobs and many of the people in his circle created things that just never saw the light of day. Or maybe they created things that didn't turn out the way that they had planned. I'm starting to realize that being a perfectionist and creating imperfect things are not contradictory. Instead, you must create things that are wrong in order to make them right.
You have to make something good in order to make something great. If you choose not to make something good because it won't be perfect, you won't ever make anything.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to write a good finance app so that, one day, it may be great.