In 1884 Van Gogh wrote:
If one wants to be active, one mustn’t be afraid to do something wrong sometimes, and not be afraid to lapse into some mistakes. To be good — many people think that they’ll achieve it by doing no harm — and that’s a lie… That leads to stagnation, to mediocrity.
As I reflect on my fifty years, how I wish to have shed my shy childhood and shredded the hidden rule book in my subconscious mind which always dictated me to be a “good boy”. This scripted my life to always be “perfect”, curbed my risk-taking abilities, and even influenced (rather suppressed) my communication style. It was only some years back that I came to accept failure. As Neil Gaiman said: “Embrace your fear of failure. Make peace with the impostor syndrome that comes with success. Don’t be afraid of being wrong.”
How I now want my every day to be randomly mutated from the previous. Isn’t this what made evolution worthwhile!
Perfectionism is unrealistic. It blocks the fundamental structure of learning – feedback from mistakes. We are all born knowing very little and continuously go through phases of Discovering – Learning – Developing with “mistakes” being our greatest teachers in life.
You will never achieve perfection, so let it go – Be Happy!
In our journey of continuous evolution – of learning and adapting, the rules need to be broken. Neil Gaiman in his 2012 commencement address added:
Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here.
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