I have a friend who was raised to believe that, “If you’re gonna do something do it right—or don’t do it at all.” That was his father’s mantra, and it still haunts him.
This might be good advice in some extreme cases. Like if you’re operating on someone’s brain. Or engineering a building. Or flying an airplane. In such cases, you’d better bring your A-game.
But this is bad wisdom for living.
We figure out most of life on the fly. The vast majority of things we attend to are not life and death situations. What matters most is that we simply show up and do something rather than nothing.
Participation is the goal—not perfection.
Improvisation is better than staying on the sidelines.
Half-baked is better than not baked at all.
