Today’s Daily Stoic writing prompt: Where is perfectionism holding me back?
This is the idea, once again, that only absolute perfection is acceptable—which tends to be demoralizing and completely unhelpful while working to reach a goal. For one thing, things that are absolutely perfect are often simply unreal. Sometimes you set a goal and it’s not until you get further in that you realize the goal will not be worth going to extreme lengths to achieve.
I’ve learned over the years to to be able to estimate what’s realistically achievable given a set of parameters in time, cost, scope, and labour—it’s one of those project manager-related skills. I am a really big fan of good enough (not half-assed; that’s a different thing) where I can rely on my experience to make assumptions or take shortcuts when time is of the essence. I do this all the time with SCA scrolls, where I’ve gotten a good sense of how long it takes to create a scroll that will satisfy the most important requirement for me in doing this work: making something that will make the recipient happy. Putting in that extra content or design effort is where I can approach a modicum of perfection, and that’s where it matters most.
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One last shot of our little friends. We fully expect them to be gone by the time we see the nest next.
Drove to Kingston. Figured out how the cruise control in the Civic works—it’s intelligent enough to slow down on its own when it comes up on a slower-moving vehicle, and then resumes once you’re able to get past.
We visited Ft. Henry today (including a wonderful small cannon-firing, which I have a video of which I’ll need to upload to Google drive but will share once I can.
There was also a beaver tail at the end.
Then, after dinner, we walked along the waterfront, starting with this Martello tower and moving in towards the downtown area. It was a real sauna today.
Scilicet 