I read somewhere a little article about how people of a certain craft, lets say photography, scaled themselves at a different percentile from where they were actually placed. People in the 95% percentile skill-wise would place themselves in the 80% area. People in the 20% and lower would see themselves a smooth 85%. Everyone in between was pretty solid about where they were. Sometimes, I really envy those folks in the 20 below area.

The old saying “Ignorance is bliss” goes a long way. I’ll sit down, get a little creative spark in my head and set out to achieve it. Often, I’ll run into road blocks that require massive tangents to perfect. I’ll check my list of “To-Dos” and just can’t find a blank spot on the A1 sized paper to put it in, so rather than produce a half assed attempt, I just scratch from my list. I know it won’t be perfect, and that really bothers me. I just can’t bring myself to spend the time on something if it won’t be done right. Do it right, or don’t do it at all. Sadly, I take the latter more often than not.

Other’s not so much. Some folks, like those in the below 20’s, don’t really feel the need to do it right. They always think they’ve got it down perfect, despite the tremendous amount of evidence to the contrary. Their creative juices will flow and they’ll vomit it all over the desk and proceed to show it to everyone. Some will even go as far as to tell everyone else how to do it, and call themselves a teacher of the arts and a master.

I’m so jealous. Imagine going through life knowing that your the best at whatever you do. Imagine the happiness that comes with that. Imagine setting out to do a task, doing it, and doing it perfectly every time. Not me. I’m smart enough to know that what I’ve done isn’t quite the best I can do, and that there will be someone better. But I try. I try to keep bettering myself and the tasks I take under my perfectionist wing. From time to time I am quite happy at what I’ve created, and that’s what keeps me going.

Now don’t take this for how it obviously reads. I call myself a perfectionist only because I won’t leave it alone. “I wish I could just get this area here a little better.” “Yah, it’s nice, but wasn’t exactly what I had in my head.” I’m not sure there’s a better word for it, so I use perfectionist. I’ll just keep trying and keep being disappointed until I stumble on that one that just works for me. That’ll be great for a while and I’ll slump down again.

But oh how I wish I could be ignorantly happy.