Perfection. We always seem to be striving for perfection but it is very elusive.

I started to read this book titled Don’t Do Your Best which argues against the usual comments we get to just “do your best” at whatever we attempt. The premise of the book is, more or less, that attempting to do something – even poorly – is better than not taking the risk of trying in the first place. Or something like that.

If someone criticizes what you do, the say something like “I’m building my body of work, go build your own”. Or, again, something like that.

The picture above is of a paint pouring on canvas I did a few weeks ago. I wanted to do a paint project again since it had been a couple of years but hesitated doing one in the new house. The only sort of “unused” space is in the spare bedroom where my office is located. And it has beige carpet, so not exactly good for artsy craftsy things.

I opted instead to put down an old shower curtain on the floor in a narrow space between the dining room and living room and then set up a card table to work on which was covered in paper. So far so good.

I mixed up paint and did the first two pourings and then realized I had a bit of paint left over along with some in the pan. Well, why not do a third one? I dipped the third canvas in the paint tray and poured on the left over paint. At some point, not exactly sure what I was doing, the canvas slipped / flipped out of my hand and landed paint side down. On the floor. Not the part covered by the shower curtain, but the floor. SPLAT!

And that is exactly why I don’t want to do these projects in the house. I salvaged the canvas and cleaned up the floor so all was not lost.

I posted pictures of all three canvases on Facebook and the one above was the most liked. And the one above is the one that fell paint side down on the floor. In other words, it was the hot mess of the three, something I didn’t share when posting the pictures.

So the one that should have been thrown away (maybe) is the one everyone liked. Go figure.

It reminded me of when I would bake something new and was not necessarily be pleased by the results. I’d take it to work and whatever I put out would gobbled up with people raving about how good it tasted. Ok, maybe they were liars but I doubt it.

Goes to show, that even if we are striving for what we perceive to be “perfect” someone else may already think it is. We spend so much time beating ourselves up and twisting into knots to do things perfectly when maybe, just maybe, “good enough” will actually be awesome.

The very fact that we are ATTEMPTING something will blow other people away because they are too afraid to possibly fail when trying something new or different.

I am trying to remind myself of this on a daily basis. It is not required that I be perfect in order to succeed as a human being. It is not required that I do something perfectly the first time, only that I learn from my mistakes and do better the next time. It is not required that everyone else love or even like whatever arts and crafts I attempt, only that it brings me joy.

Stop trying to be perfect and just be you, however messy that is.