How do I stop expecting myself to be perfect?

Perfection can promise protection: if you make no mistake, perhaps nobody can dismiss you, leave you or discover that you are less impressive than they hoped. The difficulty is that the promise keeps changing its terms.

Notice where a useful standard becomes a judgement of your worth. Revising a piece of work because it needs revision differs from revising because allowing anyone to see an imperfection feels unbearable.

Try deciding what the task genuinely requires before you begin improving it indefinitely. Who will use it? What would a meaningful error be? What degree of care is proportionate?

You may need to practise the discomfort of finishing rather than the pleasure of being flawless. A completed, considered attempt can meet the world. A perfect possibility can only keep you company.

Jing asks what the task requires. I would ask what your attention is serving while you work. Care attends to the thing itself. Perfectionism can turn even a generous task into an exhausting watch over your own image.

There is no need to become careless in order to loosen that watch. You can correct an error because it affects someone, then stop when the correction has served its purpose.

In a bookshop, a shelf can always be rearranged. At some point a customer needs to reach the books. An arrangement that exists mainly to preserve the bookseller's sense of order may have forgotten the reader.

Let the purpose of the work help set its limits. Enough is not always a surrender. Sometimes it is the point at which care becomes available for something else.

I tried perfection once. Very poor value. The entrance fee was high, the premises were unfinished and the proprietor kept adding another floor whenever I approached the top.

They offered a loyalty card: after ten flawless performances, you receive the opportunity to worry about an eleventh. No refunds for being human.

Jang wants the reader to reach the books. Radical. The perfection department would prefer the reader to wait while it inspects the angle of the shelf.

Release one reasonably finished thing. Not a dangerous bridge or an untested parachute; choose a task whose small imperfections people can survive without a public inquiry.

Then observe the astonishing event in which life continues. The proprietor will insist this proves nothing. They are trying to sell you another floor.