How much time do you dedicate to write some words? Or maybe composed a poem? How about writing a research paper for a scientific journal? Do you feel overwhelmed about the number of hours spent in one project? Is this draining all your energy or giving you the satisfaction of a job well done? Why does it seem to be easy for some to do certain tasks?

I have spent many hours thinking about how to write this story. Everyone comes up with a different strategy to approach a task. Me? I look for inspiration around me while I am reading, interacting with others, listening to music, watching videos, or studying, however, I gain inspiration at moments when I can’t take notes. Perhaps at 4:00 a.m. when I am feeding the cat, in the shower, when I am driving, or at midnight when I am brushing my teeth. When it comes to inspiration, there is no such thing as perfect timing.

I am a perfectionist. I am always looking for a perfect picture shot, perfect content of words when I write speeches, perfect word combination when I am writing poetry, creating perfect formatting and visually appealing documents, and working on perfectly-designed drawings, graphs, plots, logos, etc. You get the idea. Not matter how we look at things, we all have a little or a lot of perfectionist on us.

Sometimes, not everything has to be planned to be perfect because it can lead to a misinterpretation of your intentions. If things don’t go as planned, and we don’t know how to react, we can feel guilty for failing to identify all the possible outcomes. We need to learn, so we can adapt.

I find inspiration in music to write poetry, but I see it everywhere. Poetry is the mechanism to describe what is bugging us during the day, and free our words to the world in a very cryptic way. The meaning is hidden and captures our feelings to the moment. The poetry I write is perfect for what I am trying to convey, but not so much for the editors of the journals.

I spent countless hours analyzing data, plotting correlations, finding trends, reporting results, constructing tables, and formatting pages of information to create a perfect product. Nevertheless, this is only the beginning of a big transformation.

Perfection is not a bad thing. It is necessary for systems to work properly, it is essential for art to show the best features, it is the arrangement of a meticulous task, it is the layout of the pictures in the wall, it is the order of a world full of entropy. We double and triple check our work to be 100% sure that it is complete to our satisfaction.

At the end of the day, we are our very own worst critics, but with tons of practice, we become more confident of our work and we gain a boost of self-esteem.

Devoting all our energy to perfection does not apply to all of our life situations. Perfection becomes overwhelming. We have to accept who we are and how our loved ones are. I am grateful and very lucky to walk the path of beautiful imperfections.