"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
~Thomas A. Edison
September 2015, I committed to attending Toastmasters weekly. Besides doing impromptu speeches and prepared presentations, members wear many hats. One may have to chair the meeting, assign roles, time speeches, meet and greet. Or, play the role of grammarian; parliamentarian; evaluator or table talks master. The club I joined was large with many highly accomplished people and award-winning speakers. As a newbie, it was much more time consuming than I'd anticipated. The learning curve was steep. Evaluators could be harsh at times. We had to develop thick skin, become "anti-fragile" or more resilient.
September 2016, I decided to allocate the time I'd spent preparing for Toastmaster meetings to blogging. My goal was to empower people with healthy ageing tips, while improving my writing skills. I challenged myself to publish one article per week. I looked for a free, easy to use blog site.
Then I had to figure out how to reach friends and family. Intending only to use it for posting the blogs, I signed up for Facebook (sadly, I have yet to take the time to learn proper etiquette, or to properly navigate my way around it). I also started to use MailChimp, to reach those who may prefer email for social connection.
I pride myself on being a do-it-your-selfer (perhaps self-limiting), making do without tech support. After all, I have a background in IT (Information Technology), albeit pre internet. But unlike our son, who will do tutorials, google "how to" and process instructions provided, I neglect to take the time to do that. I expect that all will be intuitively obvious.
Soon enough I realize again that this too is much more time consuming than I'd anticipated. Sometimes just finding art that depicts the content, and that I can manage to fit into the slot allotted, poses a significant challenge. I often have to settle for art Siteblog offers for free, even if not entirely reflective of my content.
More often than not, technology presents a greater challenge than generating an idea and writing about it.
Last Saturday morning I spent an extraordinary amount of time cutting and pasting the blog I'd written quickly, to share via email on MailChimp. My focus, that morning, was to make it legible on cell phones, something I have neglected to do in the past. I struggled. Because both our children were coming home that afternoon, I wanted to post the blog ASAP, not have it cut in to my time with family.
As valuable time became lost, I became increasingly frustrated. When I finally managed to preview something that looked reasonable, I pressed send without even reading it. I'd met my myopic objective to display content within margin, when pulled up on a cell phone. I celebrated my small victory.
Later, when I opened my own email, to actually read what I'd sent, I was disappointed. I had been focusing so much more on appearance than content, and it showed. But then I paused, thought about it for a second, laughed and realized what a great life lesson. "Could I possibly be learning to embrace imperfection?"
Perfection is overrated. Without a doubt, I have learned more from my mistakes than from my successes.
Focusing on these minor challenges means I'm never bored. Clearly I have a whole lot more to learn. Bear with me.
Originally published May 20, 2017
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