Chase Perfection, Catch Excellence

Activities here on read.cash have been somewhat low since the start of the new month, and it seems to be decelerating at an increasing rate as the day goes by. Myself, I have not been so active so far this month too because I am having some challenges too with my phone and power supply too.

It is a common saying that perfect doesn't exist. Well, I'd say it depends on which lens you are looking at things from. One can argue that the human body is a work of perfection, as is planet earth and nature itself. 'Perfect' is a man made concept meaning without flaw. What if perfection is what exists now, all the good and bad in a delicate balance that can be easily disrupted?

Permit me to use perfect interchangeably with excellence

I have always been one who likes perfect. and I am quite attentive to details too. I believe that whatever is worth doing is worth doing well, and of course, all of this is relative simply because what may be perfect to me may not be perfect to someone else. I remember a time I had to measure all the dimensions of a cardboard because I wanted what I want to do with it to be a perfectly fit to size with the cardboard. Everything I had to do that day was measured, and even though I got the result I wanted according to my friend who was with me all through the process, I still felt it wasn't perfect.

Which brings me to one of my favourite words and the topic of this article. In chasing the illusion of what perfect should be, I caught excellence even if I didn't catch the perfect I so desperately wanted. As humans, there are a lot of things we want to do or that we want to be good at, dare I say perfect at. Even when I set a goal last month for a perfect month wherein I publish one article every day, even though I didn't meet the goal, I managed to publish 30 articles in the 31 days, and that bis excellence. Maybe it is speaking a foreign language, or dancing, or singing, or cooking, or solving complex Mathematical problems. Whatever it is, you can become excellent at it trying to perfect it.

I am a thorough person, and I often push myself to the highest level I can reach by trying to do things the best way they can be done. Of course, time is an important factor in this. Two months ago, my uncle wanted to repaint the interior of his house simply because he didn't like how I looked at that time. Truth is: it didn't look bad even though it was an all-white coloured painting, you can hardly see any stains on the wall, but I did lack that sparkly white of a newly painted wall.

He called the painter who happened to be the son of a family friend, and he had done the job for about 8 hours, which was practically all day. I was there all through, watching him do his work and learning a thing or two in the process. My uncle had complained about the time taken to get the job done as that was his only complaint, considering everything else was perfectly done. As I watched him paint, I could see the care and attention he's paying to the job at hand so everything could be done perfectly. It was as though I was watching myself paint as that's definitely how I'd do the job. He could have done it faster if he wasn't concerned about perfection, and because I was the one with him all through, I understood why he took longer.

What if he had done it shabbily and faster, would my uncle have been satisfied about it? Perhaps. But the point there is, he has done a good job, and many would see what he's done and say or think: "This painter did well" and I guess that is what matters in the end isn't it? A job well done.

So, I ask you my readers Longer time and a job well done or Shorter time and a shabby work?

Thank You For Reading 🖤🖤