There’s looking to always improve and there’s never feeling good enough.
The first one is an ambition, the second is a sickness.
The former is not afraid of mistakes. They calmly incorporate the lesson into the next iteration.
The latter is terrified of mistakes, terrified of being found out, terrified of others discovering they are flawed.
They devour books, articles, podcasts and blogs desperately trying to find the secret to becoming perfect.
There is an anxiety about them.
Each new improvement or technique learned doesn’t satiate the desire. That feeling of being good enough is always tantalisingly out of reach.
So they rush to learn the next skill/technique.
In fact they probably go to the grave feeling incomplete.
Never fully absorbing the fact that the perfect human doesn’t exist.
Never noticing that they were complete all along.
Never realizing that they were running themselves ragged on a wild goose chase the whole time.
Instead they would beat themselves up for 5 minutes of time wasted on their phone when they could’ve spent the whole weekend watching TV and reconnecting with that elusive feeling of relaxed content calm.
Thomas Duggan 