The Waste of Perfection
The one where George Lucas throws up in his mouth.
I remember watching after school specials when I was a kid. There’s one in particular that stuck with me. It was about a girl who was bulimic. Everyone who knew her saw a healthy, attractive, normal girl, but when she looked in the mirror all she saw were flaws — or, at least, what she perceived to be flaws.
There’s a scene in Star Wars where a Stormtrooper, bursting into a room, hits his head on a door. I’d probably watched that movie 30 times before I noticed it, and only after someone pointed it out to me. But I bet George Lucas throws up in his mouth a little every time he thinks about it. (Which I find some joy in, because Han shot first, you son of a bitch!)
Steve Jobs was notorious for his attention to detail. Everything had to be right. He had high standards. But he also understood the value of compromise, and that you rarely only get one chance in life. It’s OK to aspire to a Jobs-like level of perfectionism, but not at the expense of progress.
Here’s the secret the girl suffering from bulimia learned: there’s no such thing as “perfect”. We might take extreme steps to try to make something more perfect, but with severely diminishing returns —like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Time and energy spent that way is not an investment. It’s waste. Use that time to show what you have to someone else. Fresh eyes give us perspective, so we can appreciate the forest even though there are a few mangled trees.
I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t have high standards, or that we shouldn’t work hard to make things better. We should do our best work. We want to do things, create things, and share things we’re proud of. That’s really hard to do when we’re too focused on what’s wrong, and not focused enough on what’s right.