perfectionism

from the words of julia cameron's the artist's way:

perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. it has nothing to do with fixing things. it has nothing to do with standards. perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. it is a loop–an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight of the whole. instead of creating freely and allowing errors to reveal themselves later as insights, we often get mired in getting the details right. we correct our originiality into a uniformity that lacks passion and spontaneity. "do not fear mistakes," miles davis told us. "there are none."

to the perfectionist, there is always room for improvement. the perfectionist calls this humility. in reality, it is egotism. it is pride that makes us want to write a perfect script, paint a perfect painting, perform a perfect audition monologue.

perfectionism is not a quest for the best. it is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough–that we should try again.