The Pursuit of Perfection

We all do it…We obsess so much about perfection, especially when it comes to working on projects, that we put them off time and time again, thinking that we’ll do it once we have everything just right. We’re afraid we’ll be mocked if we’re not masters at our new hobby right out of the gate, if our home makeover doesn’t look like what we see on TV, if we weren’t able to buy fancy new organizational containers for our bathroom makeover. But in the meantime, by continually putting those projects off, we lose out on the happiness they can bring us.

Even as I am writing on this blog about choosing happiness, I have still found myself worrying about this. On the day I was to post my first several blog posts, I started to get scared. My website wasn’t perfect yet. My early posts were all centered around Mother’s Day, and it was nearly a month afterwards. Would people really think it was relevant? Would they really read it? I began to question whether I should even post at all, whether I should give up the idea of starting a blog altogether, an idea that was becoming more ridiculous the more I thought about it. But I powered through those feelings. I chose happiness and started the blog, and the sense of accomplishment and happiness I felt in that moment and ever since is almost indescribable.

Then, I worried about posting about our at home mini-golf course because the pictures we had taken were not great and were taken more for us, before I had the idea to start a blog. I worried people would look at the clutter around our living room, kitchen, and dining room and judge me. But then I remembered how much fun Ron and I had designing and playing the course, despite the broken A/C, and I made myself post the pictures, despite the clutter, on both the blog and my Instagram page, in hopes that someone else might be able to have as much fun as we did that weekend too.

And even after that, I almost didn’t paint a design on my indoor herb garden, and then when I did, I almost didn’t post it. I am not a very skilled painter, and I was worried about the way they would look, about what people would think. But once I was done, I was so proud of my project. And now, every day when I see the sprouts of my herbs and the reminder to “choose happy,” I can’t help but smile.

So if you’re putting something off, thinking that you’ll learn to sew later, that you’ll plant a garden next summer when you make sure everything is just right, that you’ll re-do your bathroom when you get time off from work, that you’ll reorganize your closet only when you can find the perfect organizational system even though it stresses you out now, that you’ll take up woodworking when you have more space at your house, etc., etc., etc., this is your reminder to do it now! Do the things that you are putting off and choose the pursuit of happiness, rather than the pursuit of perfection.