I was reading through some old emails today and I came across one from October of 2009 from David Allen of Getting Things Done (GTD). He had a “food for thought” entitled “Direction, not perfection.”

While perfection is an ideal goal it is often very difficult – if not impossible – to achieve. Perfection would be nice with code, children, philosophy, behavior, LIFE, etc. But sometimes I give up if I know it won’t be perfect. I stop in my tracks when I hit that first bump and sometimes I stop because I’m just thinking about the bumps.

I remember in elementary school I ran hurdles for a while during the track and field section of PE. I remember enjoying it. Looking forward to it even. Then I fell on the next-to-last hurdle one day. I didn’t like the hurdles much after that. I didn’t run them with the same speed and lack of hesitation that I did before. I remembered how bad the fall felt. I didn’t want to risk it again. But I also wasn’t perfect anymore and that was a big reason I stopped. I can think of other things I’ve given up on when I lost the impression I was “perfect” (I’ve never really been perfect at anything, but you already knew that).

I’ve learned more about the familiar “get back on the horse” since elementary school, but I still haven’t made it to perfection. I’ve learned to learn from failures. To embrace and cherish successes (and learn from them too, of course).

But recently I’ve been thinking more about “moving” and “doing” instead of “thinking” “planning” and “deciding” and David’s thoughts encourage that.

Heck, if I were going for perfection I wouldn’t be writing this blog now would I? I’d have it designed first (not using the default template it is as of July 2, 2010). I’d have more thought through editorial (ha!) schedule and I’d probably proofread and review my writing more.  But I’m going in a direction.

I’m not going in half cocked and winging it. That’s not what I mean at all. I think it can be summed up like this: There are consequences to our actions, but there are also consequences to our inactions. There will be more on that later.