💭 Week #29: Are Your Works Enough?

It feels like nothing is aligning with me. Maybe I’m just a perfectionist?

Mar 12, 2026

Have you ever looked at a tree and thought, “That one grew wrong”?

It leans too far. Its branches reach in odd directions. It does not look like the illustration in the textbook. Yet, when the season comes, it bears fruit all the same. Birds still nest in it. Shade still falls beneath it. It does its work—crooked and all.

I have been thinking about perfectionism lately. Not the kind of weakness like “My weakness is that I care too much.” The quiet kind. The kind that makes you stare at your own work and feel like it is never enough. The kind that stops you from publishing, starting, or even trying—because the gap between what you imagined and what you made feels too wide.

I know this gap well.
It visits me often.

But here is something I noticed. In nature, nothing is symmetrical. Look closely at a leaf—one half is always slightly larger than the other. Look at a riverbed—it does not cut a straight line; it curves, it bends, and it adjusts. And yet, we do not call the river broken. We call it beautiful. We follow its path and marvel at the canyon it carved over time.

The river did not carve that canyon in a single pour. It carved it by showing up—day after day, season after season, imperfect and relentless.

That is something perfectionism does not want you to know. It tells you the first attempt must be the masterpiece. It tells you that if the work has a flaw, the worker must be flawed too. But nature tells a different story. Nature says: grow anyway. Bend toward the light even if you cannot grow straight. Drop your leaves when the season demands it. Rest. Then try again.

The plans of the diligent surely lead to success,
But all who are hasty surely head for poverty.
— Proverbs 21:5

Notice—it does not say the plans of the perfect. It says the plans of the diligent. The one who keeps working, keeps adjusting, and keeps showing up. Success is not reserved for those who never make mistakes. It is reserved for those who do not stop.

So if you are holding something back—a project, a message, a creative work—because it is not yet perfect, let me say this gently: it does not need to be.

The crooked tree still bears fruit. The winding river still reaches the sea. And your imperfect effort, offered with consistency, is more valuable than the flawless thing that never leaves your hands.

Publish it.
Send it.
Ship it.

Then make the next one better. That is how the river carves.

— Kyle

💭 Love for Imperfect Things

Haemin’s book has lovely illustrations and reflections that make you wonder why accepting imperfect things—in ourselves and in the world around us—brings us such peace. What I love most is how he gently guides you toward cultivating empathy and self-compassion—even as the world around us keeps chasing perfection. Haemin’s sweet and heartwarming tone echoes throughout the entire book.

✱ Learn more about this book

💭 An Almanac of Birds

Maria Popova made these collages of birds and compiled them into an almanac. The only thing I can say about the visuals is that they feel retro, which evokes nostalgia for opening old print books.

Blue Bird (art from An Almanac of Birds: 100 Divinations for Uncertain Days)

Flamingo (art from An Almanac of Birds: 100 Divinations for Uncertain Days)

I have found that the surest way of seeing the wondrous in something ordinary, something previously underappreciated, is coming to love someone who loves it. As we enter each other’s worlds in love—whatever its shape or species—we double our way of seeing, broaden our way of being, magnify our sense of wonder, and wonder is our best means of loving the world more deeply.
— Maria Popova

✱ Learn this almanac of birds

💭 This Is Your Sign to Start

A stop sign that forgot what it was supposed to say. (Art by Zack Evans)

There's an idea that hasn’t left you alone. Maybe it’s been weeks. Maybe longer. It taps you on the shoulder when you are almost asleep and resurfaces in quiet moments you didn’t ask for. Zack Evans wrote something for people like us—the ones who keep waiting to feel ready before beginning. His answer is both simple and a little disarming: you go first, and confidence catches up later.

✱ Read How to Start

💭 A Little Confession

I have a quiz app I’m building with a friend. At one point, I spent hours on the exact timing of a tile flip animation—the cubic-bezier curve, the overlay fade, and the way a button rolls out when pressed. Nobody asked me to. No user would ever notice the difference between 0.3 seconds and 0.35 seconds.

But I noticed.
And because I noticed,
The interaction feels alive instead of flat.
Sorry, my man, for the wait.
I know!

Maybe that’s what perfectionism looks like when it is quiet—not the kind that paralyzes, but the kind that just cares a little too much about the small things. And somehow, that feels okay. 🌿

💭 Collection of Colors

mymind gathered 111 color palettes. All of them are soft. All of them are a little stunning. The kind of colors that aren’t loud but somehow make everything around them feel more considered. They say you can steal them. Take what you need and bring them somewhere new.

✱ Steal the colors

💭 Excellent UIs

Before an app becomes something you tap and scroll through, it starts as a feeling someone tried to sketch out. That’s UI design—the part that happens before the code, where someone decides how a thing should feel to use. I’ve been enjoying that process more than I expected lately. But instead of sharing mine, I want to show you some that stopped me mid-scroll—the ones I keep returning to.