I am sort of sorry for the clickbait-ish title, but the fact is that is the truth and I am okay with it. This isn’t to say that I think my work is garbage and I should give up, but rather this says a lot more about me personally than my work. I have been creating things since I can remember. The first thing I can recall was legos and far exceeding what the instructions stated. After that, there was a vast number of outlets I attempted to use to create or pen my thoughts both digitally and physically. Each one of these projects has taken me countless hours, days, and even years. There is this ecstatic feeling I get when I finish a project, but that lasts days if not hours. When it eventually hits, and it always does, I start to loathe what I have created. It doesn’t start out as hatred. It just starts out as disinterest, but it evolves slowly and slowly. Thankfully, I am not alone on this feeling.
You see, I always strive for perfection. Rather, I used to strive for perfection. This sounds like a terrible interview response, but hear me out. We are always told to strive for the best. Achieve the best. Only perform at the best. It is no question that the best is what separates the “us” versus “them.” The win-lose mentality. It is what makes legends great. It is why LeBron James the caliber player that dominates a league. There are plenty of examples of this. Oddly enough, that is how I went by creating the majority of my work. Was it right? Not particularly, but I wanted to be the best.
Perfect is the enemy of good – Voltaire
You may have heard this quote. Winston Churchill said something similar with “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” Gary Vaynerchuk said “Speed is 4 billion times more important than perfection.” There is a commonality here with this. Perfection is bad. Perfection means there is an end to a beginning. That isn’t the case with us. As humans, we are meant to thrive on perceptual knowledge and growth especially on things we care about. This pushes us forward. This allows us to extend the boundary. This allows us to bend and even change the rules. This will always provide the itch that regardless how hard we try, we cannot scratch.
This is why I loathe everything I make. It isn’t that I hate the finish product. On the contrary, I think of ways to improve it; to change it; to do something differently; to do better. It plagues me as this happens on each and every project. I have been attempting to come to terms with this. It is extremely difficult with time constraints, and the fact that this will create a terrible paradox in which I never finish anything and always change or upgrading.
Although, I wouldn’t have this any other way. If I didn’t loathe everything I make, I wouldn’t push myself to grow. There would be no incentive to educate and evolve. I always joke around when I say this, but stagnation is death. Obviously, this is grossly exaggerated, but the idea behind it remains. If I loved my work, I wouldn’t learn. I wouldn’t constantly research the best methods. I wouldn’t experiment with new ideas. I wouldn’t get better. I wouldn’t evolve. I would just do nothing at all.
That brings me back to my work. I loathe it and that is okay. I embrace the feeling. I appreciate feeling. I am loathing it because I want the best and in order for me to do the best, I have to loathe my past work in order for my future work to be better as I know I have the potential to provide better. I rather loathe my work than to not do any work. At the end of the day, I appreciate the journey and not the destination. I will always loathe my work, but it is only as of recently that I have accepted that I will loathe it. Progress isn’t pretty, but I love to get into the nitty gritty when it comes to projects.
Plus, if you like it. That is what matters most.