I set an early alarm and grabbed a cup of coffee in preparation to devote my morning to writing this article. As I sat down and opened my computer, I was suddenly hit with an immense case of writer's block. I tossed idea after idea through my head, all of them pretty decent ideas, but with one problem—they weren't perfect. As I fixated on the fact that none of the ideas that I was coming up with were perfect material for my next article, I looked at the clock and realized that I had just spent thirty minutes thinking about how my ideas weren't good enough to be an article; thirty minutes that I could have spent writing about and expanding upon an idea. That's when it hit me - how much time do I spend, or waste and fixating on trying to make everything absolutely perfect?

Perfectionism has had a grip on my life for as long as I can remember, but increased significantly in high school as I was striving to become the perfect student, leader and friend. Since graduating high school and entering college, the perfectionism has toned down somewhat, but when it comes to things that I care about I can still become extremely obsessive about making everything perfect. When I lead worship I want to make sure that it sounds perfect. When I make a gift for a friend I want to make sure that it looks perfect. When I write a paper I want to make sure that the wording and ideas are perfect. When I help plan an event or activity I want to make sure that it is executed perfectly. When I try to encourage a friend I want to make sure that I can perfectly help and encourage them. The idea of screwing up, disappointing someone, something going awry, terrifies me, and gives me an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. I love everything that I just mentioned, and I think that it is important to put time and effort into them. However I often become so obsessed with making them perfect that it hinders my ability to even enjoy them. Nothing that I do is ever going to be perfect because I am human, and I often focus on the imperfect aspects instead of enjoying all of the good.

I am currently trying to bring myself to the point of being able to understand that nothing is ever going to be perfect, and that's okay. The most that I can do is make sure that I am giving the best of myself, and while that is not anywhere close to perfect, it is enough. I know that the people who love me will truly love and appreciate what I have to give, even if I think that they won't. And I can pray that in doing my best, the gap between my best and perfection will point to the only perfect person in this world—Jesus.