Overcoming Perfection: Episode I — A Tale of Two Pots
The grading rubric of life is 50 pounds of pots.
In their book Art & Fear, David Bayles and Ted Orland tell the story of a ceramics teacher who divided the class into two groups. One half of the class was graded solely on the quality of their ceramics and the other half was graded solely on the quantity of their ceramics.
Grading went like this, the quality group needed to make a pot without any mistakes to pass the test. The other group needed to create 50 pounds worth of pots to pass the test.
Team quality met together and instantly started planing. They discussed, brainstormed, bounced ideas off one another, defined what is “the perfect pot?,” thought about what type of pot should we even make?, and received feedback for their thoughts. Seems like a logical next step when you’re graded solely on quality.
Team quantity? They got straight to work on making their pots. Pot after pot after pot they made. Messing up along the way, making ugly pots, messed up ones, ones that barely worked, breaking some. Doing everything they could to make as many pots as they could. Remember, 50 pounds worth of pots! (Do you know how light ceramic pots are?)
The end result?
As the deadline came up, the quality team had made one pot — full of mistakes.
Grade? FAIL.
Unfortunately, all their planning and strategizing came to mean very little by the time it came to actually make the pot. Their skills were too underdeveloped to create a perfect pot. All their time had been spent on planning, strategizing, asking the right questions, figuring out all the answers, and not doing the thing they were graded on, making a perfect pot.
The quantity team? They passed.
That isn’t what is interesting though, they had a huge pile of pots that sucked. Ugly, imperfect, and useless, but you know what else they had? A pile of pots that were perfect. That were beautiful. That were innovative in design and structure. Pots that were worth a lot. As they made more and more pots, the quantity of pots increased, but more importantly, the quality of each pot was better than the one before it.
Now you might think it is a lot easier to make fifty pounds worth of pots, than one perfect pot and therefore the grading rubric was a bit skewed. And that is exactly the point, such is the grading rubric of life. So many of us have good intentions, so many of us have big ideas, so many of us want to do more — however, very little do.
We get caught up in figuring it out beforehand, waiting for the perfect time, preparing all our questions, needing to have all the answers. Perfection is our idol. It tells us what we can do and when we deserve to do it. Though this idol promises great rewards upon granting its blessing, Perfection, more often than not, causes distraction, paralysis, and a lot of commotion and noise that nets not really much of anything.
To accomplish anything, we need to overcome our need for perfection.
Here is how we overcome perfection.
— mitchell
I work everyday to become a professional maker of something from nothing. Big and unimaginable goals are my boogie and achieving them is my rhythm. If that analogy makes sense to you or you feel like you relate, hit the follow button. If you enjoyed this or didn’t enjoy this, please like and comment or whatever you do on the source you are viewing this from. Most importantly, share this with someone you love. You can follow me here on Medium or Instagram.
