Greetings and salutations, it’s wonderful to reconnect in 2021.

If you’ve been receiving the Wow for a while you know each year I pick a theme I hope will serve me—and, perhaps, you—throughout the year.

(Little did I know how much I was going to need to rely on last year’s theme when I picked it…)

This year, I am declaring, “Perfection doesn’t have to be perfect.” Sometimes it’s messy—and that can be beautiful.

What brought this on?

Well, the holiday season reconnected me with my dormant baking spirit (see pictures above…) After reading that one particular bake had been challenging to me, a very kind friend wrote and said, “Perfection!”

I replied, “Yes, if perfection is messy… and riddled with butter.”  

But on reflection, it was true… those cherry orange hand pies (featured left) were both messy and perfect (not to mention, riddled with butter.)

The trouble is I bring Martha Stewart’s critical eye to my baking—and my inner critic to everything else I do.

Is it possible you do, too?  

And I do this despite knowing that philosophers from Voltaire to Confucious have propounded that “the perfect is the enemy of the good”—that when I wait for things to be “perfect” I lose momentum, opportunity, focus.

Not to mention a whole lot of contentment.

So I have decided to let 2021 be messy—I can almost guarantee it will be—but also to allow it to be perfect.

I hope you will, too.

For other, favorite themes from year’s past take a look at, “Look for Angels Wearing Overalls” or “Be Flexible About Everything but “If””