I was watching a crafts program and the woman was saying that a big hindrance for a lot of people is that they get so hung up on trying to make things perfectly that they wind up either not enjoying it or simply never finish at all. She said that perfection is highly overrated. It's a hobby and one should enjoy it, not stress over making it perfect. I have to agree with her completely.

I remember when I first started knitting. As I tend to be something of a perfectionist by nature I experienced a great deal of stress trying to learn and trying to make it perfect. A guy on MWK (thanks MMario) told me that knitting is supposed to relieve stress, not cause it.

I gave that a great deal of thought and realized that he was exactly right. I stopped stressing over trying to make it perfect, and just started making it. My knitting improved very quickly after that and I actually enjoyed the process of creating something, even if imperfect, with my own two hands.

I wonder how many of us wind up turning something that we should be enjoying into a burdonsome task because instead of simply enjoying it we get wrapped up in trying to do it perfectly? I think there is a valuable lesson to be learned in such a simple statement as "perfection is overrated".

Yes, there are some tasks which need to be as perfect as we can make them. Heart surgery comes to mind. But our hobbies and recreational pastimes don't really fall into that category do they? Perhaps in our modern hectic lifestyle we have forgotten that sometimes one can spend some time doing something that doesn't really need to be perfect. We can actually just enjoy doing it regardless of whether it is really perfect or not.

I think perhaps that's the very meaning of the word relaxation.