Why perfect kind of sucks.

I sent my Substack to a friend the other day with the warning label: “It’s a work in progress.” He was quick to respond.

“Works in progress are often far more interesting than things pretending to be complete.”

How often do you get the chance to be blown away by the small things your friends say?

I recommend upping that frequency and seeing how it changes your life.

Go back and read that response just one more time before we move forward. It’s important.

My interpretation, for you to take or leave, of that looks like this:

Simply owning the fact that we’re in constant growth allows for our stories to become interesting, because if we pretended that the story was over, well—everyone would stop listening.

And let’s be real. Everyone who says something is done can probably list off ten to ninety problems with the final product. It’s only “complete” because we’re bored of it, we’ve hit a deadline, or it meets the expectations laid down by someone else.

For all our lives we’ve been taught to strive for perfect. It might not be the story all of us are told at home, but it’s told to us through grades on a ninth-grade essay, work performance reports, and consistent demonstrations of the “perfect” technique in this, that, or the other activity.

How many of us actually reach perfect?

Zero.

Perfect doesn’t exist.

You put the best of the best up on stage and the results will always roll in with the astonishment paired with critique. People get paid a lot of money to look for flaws.

And so what?

Well, for one, society has created a world in which it often feels unsafe to admit that we’re a work in progress. Surrounded by constant criticism, too many of us are terrified to show up as ourselves because of the world that picks apart every little thing we do, just to hand it back to us in shatters and tell us to fix it.

Perfection is flawed. It doesn’t exist, and the pursuit of it can be detrimental to those who struggle to find happiness inside of “good enough.”

A work in progress, however, is So. Fucking. Beautiful.

The story of perfection is met with:

• Whoa.

The story of a work in progress is met with:

• Whoa.

• No way, you too?

• You mean, I’m not alone?

• How did you go about managing that?

• Tell me more about this.

• Tell me more about that.

• Tell me more.

A work in progress is fascinating. It has a story behind it and a future ahead.

Mostly, it’s the simple fact that we can relate to it. Every single work in progress has bits and pieces that anyone and everyone can relate to.

But perfection, no one can relate to perfection.

So what can you actually do then? If it’s ingrained in you to strive for perfection?

For starters, just own it. Own your stumbles as much as you own your successes. Share every part of the story, not just the pieces that make you feel good.

And then get curious. Ask questions. Ask a shit ton of questions.

Asking questions about others’ works in progress shows that you care. It shows that it’s more engaging, more interesting, more enticing, more full of life, more everything.

No one wants to hear about perfection. The stories told from the end are void of the raw, uncut emotion that the stories told along the way carry.

Because as we sit at the end, pretending to have completed something, even we’re bored.