July 11, 2026- Move toward perfection without chasing it

To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality.

~John Ruskin

We must be willing to get it wrong. Perfection is not part of the human experience. If we believe we are a witness to perfection, it just indicates that we are being selective in our observation, willfully or otherwise.

Sometimes, perfection becomes the electric rabbit, and we become the greyhound. Chasing perfection may make us sprint a bit harder, but we will never actually catch it and we cannot possibly keep up that pace forever. Life is not a sprint. It does not serve us to go as fast as we can. We may be able to move in the same direction as perfection, but we will never reach it.

If we cannot bear imperfection, we will stop trying. Nobody wants to fail constantly. If our goals are to use our discipline to move in the direction of perfection, to give ourselves grace when we come up short of it, to reflect on what we’ve done and how we might do better, and to be resilient enough to keep trying, we can succeed constantly. If perfection is our only goal, we will eventually attempt to hide from every challenge, as it is sure to end in us failing.

Move toward perfection without chasing it. Every day, be a little bit better than you were yesterday. Each time it happens, consider it a success.