Perfection & the Struggle to Love Process

I'm not very good with processes. Sometimes I wait so long to publish something in pursuit of perfection that it risks irrelevance. Other times I’m reactive and don’t think through how what I’m launching will be sustained. All this inconsistency can lead to frustration for the people that are around me regularly and confusion for my own soul when trying to do the next right thing.

I think that’s the struggle for me: I genuinely like a lot of stuff. I enjoy the creative process, I love learning, and I particularly enjoy launching something new. But I also appreciate excellence. And therein lies the tension I live with: I want to have my hand in everything and be perfect at it all. While living like that can be a fun challenge, it can also be exhausting and lead to anger and resentment toward others who pose a threat to my pursuit of "perfection"—people I care about and should be putting ahead of my own dreams.

After years of struggling with this, I’m finally starting to embrace the imperfect. The messy. The iterative. I need it. My friends and family need it. They need me to believe that margin in life isn’t just helpful, it’s righteous. What I deem as perfection really isn't that at all. My opinion doesn’t define what is good or bad, God does.

The good news is that God doesn’t wait until we’ve been totally sanctified to use us. He isn’t expecting perfection from us because he already knows he’ll never find it. That's why he gave us his perfection as a gift. And in that alone, true joy can be found in trying and failing.

"I want to major in love and minor in what I create."

When I die, I don’t want people to think, “he was a great ______, but he was always a little impatient with me.” I want to major in love and minor in what I create.

A note from Matt:

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