The writer Rebecca Solnit puts it well: “So many of us believe in perfection, which ruins everything else, because the perfect is not only the enemy of the good; it’s also the enemy of the realistic, the possible, and the fun.”

our lives, thanks to their finitude, are inevitably full of activities that we’re doing for the very last time.

The second step is letting go of the pursuit of perfection—a trait ingrained in us through societal norms that constantly bombard us with glorified imagery of perfect bodies, flawless products, impeccable homes, and glamorized lives.