Perfectionism.

This is a rambling post, and for bonus (?) points, I am using words from a religion not my own, which seems somewhat awkward and yet they are right to what I want to say, I think.

If it has to be perfect, it so often does not get done.

God made the world, and he looked at it and said it was good. Not perfect. Just good.

It strikes me that He was very wise, for how could we His creations then have any room for improvement or freedom if the world had been perfect? It was good: and that was enough. For if everything were perfect, only two types of choice or change would be possible: to swap one perfect thing for another equally-perfect thing (is such possible?), or to become worse.

In not choosing to make the world perfect, He left us the ability to improve ourselves. And to create. If we cannot make things that are perfect, should we not be grateful? Today I may write a good poem. Tomorrow I may write a better poem. (Or a worse one. Or one of each.) If I have once written a perfect poem - I might match that achievement but never exceed it. It is always hard to aim for something you have achieved before, and to miss it; but how much worse to know you could never surpass it, never hope for that moment when you outdid yourself?

I am a perfectionist, of course, and have been since I was quite young. I remind myself I should not be, and this post is another reminder of that. Or rather, it is the fruit of such a reminder that I delivered to myself more in private recently, and that bled into the thoughts above.