What is perfect does not grow

Self-oriented perfectionism creates a paradox: you hold yourself to impossibly high standards while convincing yourself nothing you create is good enough to share. For over a decade, I've been stuck in this cycle, with hard drives full of half-finished creative projects gathering digital dust. The few things I have released were launched quietly into the void without telling anyone, not even my wife¹. It's not about seeking external validation; it's about the internal battle where I convince myself to wait for the "right moment" that never comes because perfect is a moving target.

The irony is that while I tell myself that I don't care about recognition, I hold on to my work tightly because I fear it won't meet the standards in my head. But great things aren't built in isolation. They needs feedback, iteration, and vulnerability. So I'm shifting my perspective: sharing won't be the end of the creative process but part of the middle. This post might still end up in my folder of unseen work (I even have an unpublished piece from earlier this year about sharing more), but maybe publishing this is the first baby step.

We'll see.