I, like many of us, have often let my perfectionism prevent me from STARTING. Things pile up around me because I can’t just do them, I have to do them RIGHT and I can’t do it right now, so it waits. It can fester.

I, like many of us, am learning that anything worth doing is worth doing poorly, because something is better than nothing and done is better than perfect.

(Exhale). Done is better than perfect.

I’ve repeated this lesson over and over and I’m still learning it.

I first heard it from the brilliant Kate Mattson at UC Berkeley. It was our Production Management class and she saw my draft after draft of an unsubmitted version and tell me “SMITH. Done is better than perfect.”

“Done perfectly is better,” I’d respond, refusing to learn and watching my hair fall out.

I, like many of us, was raised under the delusion that my behavior could fix the world. That if *I* recycled enough, and turned the lights off when exiting the room, climate change (then called global warming) could be stopped. That if *I* stopped eating meat, there’d be enough grain to feed the world. And that if EVERYONE ELSE could do like I do, then everything would be fine (LOLOLOLOLOLOL).

We had elementary school assemblies and I quickly became the enforcer at home. Turning lights off, separating the trash from the recycling, picking up trash at the park, admonishing smokers on the street.

My parents are, and always were, incredible– with their drought buckets in the shower and catch pitchers by the sink, early adapters of canvas bags, they recycle and even compost now.

I’ve kept it up too– we work hard to reduce our driving by walking or riding our bikes when we can, we’ve reduce our plastic (I totally buy those laundry and soap tablets) we refill rather than repurchase, buy things second hand. My daughter, now six herself, shouts out “REUSE!!”

But I carried and spread a disproportionate amount of guilt and anger about the fact that my personal responsibility is not and has not been enough to fix the world. I see that now. I want her to know that too– that it’s GOOD and important to do what you can but at the end of the day, there are bigger things so far out of our control.

The times I’ve scolded my partner for throwing away something compostable, or trying to recycle paper towels (seriously, who thinks that’s a thing?), the times I’ve gotten angry at myself for throwing something away instead of repurposing it, the strange things I’ve kept tucked away because “It’s a really nice bottle,” or “I can find something to do with this.”

I don’t want to discourage folks from doing what they can, it is a form of empowerment. Just please, keep it the right size. Remember that yeah, we can recycle those little toilet paper tubes (or compost them), and yeah, a BUNCH of those get thrown away every year. But… that’s not the driving problem.

We’ve been sold the lie that WE, individuals, are responsible. And we believed that lie because of ego and fear. We want to feel powerful, not powerless.

But if you’re trapped in the prison of perfectionism, feeling like a failure because you are not solving All the Things, I’m here to remind you… the responsibility belongs to a few corporations, all owned by and benefitting the extremely rich.

But we, as third graders, were told was our job to fix.

And maybe, you, like me, have a stack of things that Don’t Get Done because they Should Be Done a certain way. I’m gonna remind you that done is better than perfect. Throw away the toilet roll tube, throw the coffee filter in the garbage. Yes, it’s good to recycle and compost, but if you are struggling this little bumps can stall you out.

The times I’ve left a filter in our coffee maker overnight because I needed to wash the compost bin so I could put a fresh paper in it before I empty the filter…. and none of that was going to happen? Yeah, just throw the damn thing in the trash. Then it’s done.

That doesn’t mean climate change is your fault.

I challenge you to do something poorly today. Practice imperfectionism.

Lemme know how it goes.
xox