Done Is Better Than Perfect Because Perfect Is Never Done

Now that’s a quotable quote!

Seems simple and straightforward enough, but a lot of the time it's easier said than done. 

While this quote just popped into my mind one day, what I wanted to write about it didn’t come right away.  So I waited until I knew what I wanted to say about it.

I have personally struggled with finding a balance between aiming for perfection and completion. I know there is no such thing as perfection, yet I still grapple with it. 

What I’ve come to realize is how perfectionism gets in the way of completion. Perfectionism is a form of self-criticism or judgment, especially when it interrupts the creative process. I’ve caught myself doing this- when I second-guess myself in the writing process and I get stuck on re-working and re-writing sentences that just don't seem to work. As the saying goes, sometimes there is a lot of bad writing that has to happen first in order to get to the good stuff. 

In that sense I do need to “just do it” meaning that I need to write and to keep writing uninterrupted until I get everything out and onto paper. What I end up with might not be pretty and far from a finished product, but at least I will have gotten something done. 

Next it’s time to edit and revise. Then the question is when is a piece of writing done? There is no simple answer to this, but at some point you've got to put your work out there in the real world, if you have something that you want to share. Let me end this blog post with a few words inspired by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.'s poem "The Voiceless": Don't be one who goes to the grave with the song still inside of you.