{"id":557,"date":"2011-10-09T19:25:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T00:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/?p=557"},"modified":"2011-10-27T00:46:05","modified_gmt":"2011-10-27T07:46:05","slug":"embracing-imperfection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/creative-inspiration\/2011\/10\/embracing-imperfection\/","title":{"rendered":"Embracing Imperfection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.\u201d
\n<\/strong><\/em>– Anna Quindlen –<\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve decided I’m going to be writing and posting a lot more frequently here.<\/p>\n

In fact, I’m going to make it a goal of mine to write a post every day for 30 days… starting yesterday. If I end up missing a day, I’ll make it up by blogging twice the next day.
\n<\/del> (EDIT: Okay, so I changed my mind. Due to a heavy work schedule! But I still plan something similar. I’ll be doing a 30-days of writing challenge in November. Stay tuned!)<\/p>\n

This may come as a surprise to you, but the issue is not <\/em>that I haven’t been writing in here.\u00a0 I’ve been writing. I have quite a lot of unfinished blogs piling up in my drafts folder.\u00a0 …But of course you wouldn’t know it, because I haven’t been posting or publishing any of it.<\/p>\n

An unpublished blog post is similar to the potential of an idea. Ideas are great and wonderful of course, but if an idea is never followed up with precise and specific action, that idea’s potential will never materialize to see the light of day.<\/p>\n

I suppose I’ve been suffering from a bad habit known as “perfectionism”. Many would argue that this is an excellent habit to have. I agree that a perfectionist attitude and work ethic can be wonderful, as long as it serves you and not the other other way around. I believe, however, that I’ve let this habit take over and get the better of me… thus it’s become a hindrance rather than a help .<\/p>\n

If I’m going to publish something, I want it to be “perfect”. But one lesson I have been learning over these recent few years is that the idea of perfection is simply that — an idea. It doesn’t exist in reality. As soon as you try to manifest the idea of perfection into the real physical world, it will inherently dematerialize into something that is, somehow and in some way, imperfect.<\/p>\n

You might be thinking, “Surely this can’t be true. …Can it? You can get a perfect score on a test. 100% is not unattainable, it can<\/em> be achieved. Therefore, perfection can be attainable too.”<\/p>\n

I agree with those statements above! So, I’m forced to look deeper than the surface. Like beauty, perfection is in the eye of the holder. It depends on what type of eye and lens you’re using to observe and evaluate your reality.<\/p>\n

If you use the lens of math and objectivity, then manifesting the idea of “correctness” and thus perfection seems possible. Doesn’t it? 1+ 1 = 2. This answer seems both correct and perfect.<\/p>\n

And yet, if you look deeper, you’ll see that whole digits are made up of infinitely small divisions and ranges. Is infinity something real, or is it an idea that can only exist in our minds which cannot be proven in the physical world?<\/p>\n

If the only thing that is certain is uncertainty and the uncertainty principle, then it can also be argued that the only perfection is imperfection. Sure, there’s different and varying degrees of certainty and uncertainty, just as there are different and varying degrees of imperfection. 99% certain is still 1% uncertain, just as near perfect is still a tiny bit imperfect.<\/p>\n

Imperfection can be beautiful<\/em>!<\/p>\n

From here on in, I’m going to make a concerted and conscious effect to start embracing the beauty of imperfection — in both myself and in others.<\/p>\n

EDIT: Wow — I’m re-reading this, and it *really* is NOT perfect. It still needs quite a bit of work. My ideas are a bit muddled and don’t really flow. It’s more like a draft… And yet I went ahead and published it anyway.\u00a0 That was hard for me to do, but I did it!<\/p>\n

It might seem like a step in the wrong direction… yet in another way, it’s a step in the right direction — It’s a step towards productivity, yet a step away from quality.<\/p>\n

The next step is combining both quality and productivity (or quantity) such that I can still be productive without sacrificing quality.<\/p>\n

I’ll try working on this over the month. Let’s see how things go!<\/p>\n

\u201cThe essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.\u201d
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/em>– George Orwell –<\/span> <\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.\u201d
\n– Anna Quindlen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,11,63,48,10],"tags":[66,65],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rachellefordyce.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}