Push It

I have a reputation for doing things well.

That’s not a brag, it’s a confession. A confession that I care more about maintaining that reputation than I care about contributing, about helping, about growing.

Launching this site was painful. Sure, there were a lot of firsts for me—first time launching a website to Vercel, first time using GraphQL, first time using Next.js in a production environment, first time using WordPress as a headless CMS, and the list goes on. It took time, I made so many mistakes, and I learned a lot.

No, the truly painful part was typing “git push” with the site in the state it’s in. The visual design is boorish, the UX is mundane, and there are dozens of engaging features I want to implement but haven’t yet. The “does things well” goody two shoes monster inside me was embarrassed and didn’t want to launch until the site would be flashier and more polished…something of excellence.

But what even is excellence? Does excellence mean only revealing your most impressive work and keeping everything else under wraps? Does excellence mean practicing only your most advanced skills and letting your underdeveloped skills atrophy?

The journey of launching this site reminded me of what I want excellence to look like in my life. Excellence means not knowing the answers and making mistakes. Most of the time, it means producing unimpressive, unglamorous work. It means relentlessly pushing towards improvement and growth despite continual setbacks. Excellence means pursuing improvement while embracing imperfection.

So, push it. Just go for it! The only way to do things well is to do things poorly.