Can I Stop Waiting? Should I?
I constantly want to wait just a little longer before calling something finished (or even starting)
I constantly want to wait just a little longer before calling something finished (or sometimes before starting). Take another pass. Get things just right. No, not just right. I know that getting things just right is a perfectionist myth. And that when just right does happen, it’s as much serendipity as it is a will-based result. But getting things just a little bit better? That’s totally doable.
But it means waiting.
Waiting to send off a short story submission. Waiting to hit publish on an article. Waiting to apply for a position or a grant. Waiting to put my house on the market. Even waiting until my back feels a little less awful to get back to painting my half-bath.
It’s not that I get nothing done. It’s that I’m slow to achieve the end result. I do all the prep work, ticking off all the boxes, and I do it at a slower pace than I could be acting. Not just slower than other people — because let’s face it, comparing your achievement pace to other people’s is a waste of time that will usually just make you depressed and you don’t get anything done — but slower than my own top speed.
