How making mistakes has made me the happiest I've ever been.

In a world obsessed with perfection and now, with AI at our fingertips, it’s easy to see how we’ve become terrified of failure.

We scroll through flawless photos, read “perfectly” written posts, and watch content edited to appear effortless. Somewhere along the way, we started to believe that mistakes meant flawed. That if we weren’t immediately good at something, we shouldn’t even try.

For a long time, I lived in that trap. I stayed tucked safely inside my comfort zone, terrified to do anything new because what if i sucked at it? My self-worth became tangled in how perfectly I performed in my every day life - at work, at home, even in hobbies that were supposed to bring me joy. For a long time I have wanted to learn violin, but after a few attempts and not being perfect at it, I soon stopped trying.

Time to pick her back up again I think!

What I discovered is that chasing perfection didn’t make me better. It made me miserable. I worked harder and harder, stretching myself thin in pursuit of an unrealistic ideal that didn’t even exist. No surprise this lead to burnout, because the truth is, perfection isn’t a destination - it’s a moving target. The more you chase it, the farther away it gets.

And it’s no wonder so many of us feel this way. We’re comparing ourselves to things that aren't even real! airbrushed models, autotuned songs, and AI-generated content that seems superhuman. It’s not real. None of it.

What is real, though, is the beautiful, messy, imperfect process of being human. We are meant to make mistakes, that’s how we learn, grow, and discover who we are and what we are capable of! (not to mention, how boring would it actually be to live in a world full of "perfect" people...yuk!) And somewhere along the way we seem to have forgotten this. Some of the greatest art, music, and writing in history was born out of imperfection! Happy accidents, flawed brushstrokes, raw emotion. Is this blog post perfect? absolutely not. Does the grammar and syntax need work? most definitely. Is it authentic and filled with my raw truths, Darn Tootin! And I like to think that is enough.

With this shift in perspective and in an effort to move away from subscriptions and AI slop and live a more wholesome life (One might even say Hobbit inspired)

You know I couldn't go a post without slipping in some Lord of the rings somewhere!

I recently begun transitioning back to a lot of analog media and in doing so I began listening to Vinyl records again. Hearing the scratch of a vinyl - something that by todays standards is seen as a flaw - has become something of a ritual I now look forward too and makes music feel all the more real and visceral.

Most importantly I have been finding time to get in to my garden and grow my own vegetables and as any gardeners out there I'm sure will agree, if that's not one of the biggest tests of patience and learning from ones mistakes, I don't know what is.

I am far from perfect, but I'm learning and that's what its all about.

last year my tomato plants were all but destroyed by caterpillars (and I refused to use chemicals and sprays to get rid of them.)

They might eat my veggies but look at that sweet little heart on its wing! How could I kill these babies. (Photo taken in my own garden by me)

This season I learned from my mistakes and after much reading and research I learned to trim the leaves and stems below where the tomatoes are growing and not only did this give me more and bigger tomatoes but it gave the caterpillars less hiding spots allowing the birds and other bugs to find them and pick them off. So despite still losing a few tomato's due to Blossom end rot, I did get more tomatoes this season than I did last and I now know what to do to avoid blossom end rot for next season as well. I'd call that a victory!

So maybe it’s time to stop striving for "Perfect", and start striving for authentic. To embrace the cracks, the errors, and the awkward first attempts. You learn more and at the very least, its usually a lot more fun!