Rethinking "perfect or worthless"

It's a false dichotomy that a lot of us fall prey to. If something isn't perfect - if it doesn't solve every need and meet every goal - then we shouldn't bother with it.

I've struggled with it for a long time. A lot of people, people I looked up to, people who were and are important to me, gave me the message "if you can't do it right, don't bother" - often in response to "I'll do my best" - and I internalized it. If my [art/writing/music/code/etc.] isn't exactly the way I or someone else wants it, then it's no good and I shouldn't bother.

(This is part of why I struggle to take criticism, and why getting any kind of criticism - even well-meaning and constructive - feels like a stab to my soul and ruins my mood for hours, if not days: if I'm presenting something to someone, that means I feel like it's as good as I can get it, and having them say "no, it's not" feels awful.)

I wish I'd been able to recontextualize this a bit sooner - it's been 35+ years of dealing with this internalized false dichotomy for me - but I want to not be so resentful of the people who inculcated it in me, and part of that is seeing how I could have misunderstood them. I wonder, now, if what many of these people were trying to say wasn't "get it right the first time or don't do it at all", but "take your time, make the mistakes you need to make, try as many times as you need to, and come out with a finished product that fits the need."

In other words, "don't do the best that right-now you can do; put in the practice to improve your best".

I wish I'd heard that, a quarter-century and more ago, and internalized that. My world would have been much more full of work, but much easier.