An Antidote to Perfectionism

Dear Reader,

I wrote and rewrote my first post, Hello, world!, countless times. It could always have been better: sharper, wittier, defter. Evidently, I settled.

I liked to imagine that I would one day catch my mind mid-flight across the moorland view from my reclusive—but quietly stylish in a home library kind of way—study. I would set down my glass of something impressive on a big wooden desk which I would claim gave me space to think, and I would write.

The middling reception of my debut would one day fit neatly alongside the Wikipedia articles about other great works, but I would inevitably work myself into an early grave because no manuscript was ever quite good enough.

And therein lies the crux of it all: ‘good enough’. It feels arrogant to describe my fantasy: effortlessly writing something which is itself worth writing about. But I have tended to be all-or-nothing. Either I am a miraculous author whose meteoric rise is ‘genius’, or I don’t write anything at all. Either it’s perfect, or it’s not good enough.

I’ve always liked the idea of perfectionism much more as my hamartia, a moral fault line. I ought to strive for the best.

K. Tebay, ‘A Portrait of the Author as a Neck’

So, why am I sharing this? Beyond my fantasy of effortless and tragic perfection lie the less romantic but far more practicable conclusions of my actual experience. The trouble I’ve encountered with holding myself to the standard of unassailable perfection is that it’s not very fun.

In Hello, world!, I explained my initial intentions in publishing In Fewer Bytes and the functions it serves even if nobody reads it. Among them, I would like to reflect on one principle:

A tool against perfectionism by learning in public

This week, I would like to conduct an experiment. If you also struggle with perfectionism, I encourage you to join me.

Rather than agonising over every detail, I challenge myself to publish something which is clearly incompl

Thank you for your attention.

Kind regards,
Kai Tebay