I Believe

Last week, I penciled a self-imposed deadline to work on a stalled writing project I have ignored for several weeks into my day planner. Flipping the page this morning, the note stared up at me. When possible, Thursday is library day, so I printed out my existing document, planning to settle in among the stacks to read, proof, and edit it before writing anything more.

Wrong.

Having stashed the printed pages inside my copy of The Artist’s Way, I stopped at the French Café in our town center for a cup of coffee before the library opened. Claiming a marble-topped table in a bright corner by the plate-glass window, I opened the book to the page marked with a torn piece of paper, and realized that these lessons continue to communicate to me proof of synchronicity. While fingering the draft of my neglected document protruding from inside the back cover, I read:

"Midway through a project, the perfectionist decides to read it all over, outline it, see where it’s going.

And where is it going? Nowhere, very fast.

The perfectionist is never satisfied. The perfectionist never says, “This is pretty good, I’ll keep going…

Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough—that we should try again.”

After finishing the chapter, I removed the piece I had shoved into the spine of the book and folded it in half. Searching my purse for my favorite blue ball-point, I opened my red spiral notebook and began to write.

Five--yes ma'm I said five--pages later, I got up and drove to the library.