If you’re like me, you probably spend too much time worrying about whether or not your work is just right. Then, after you’re sure that it is (six revisions later), you decide there’s no hope. You suck. You’re pursuing the wrong genre. You don’t have enough time to give your writing everything you’ve got – so don’t even try.

But what if you learned to let go? What if you learned to just be yourself and stop flogging your work?

Death and Underachievement: A Guide to Happiness in Work: “Calm down. Pour yourself a glass of port, cuddle up in front of the fire with a book that you’ll probably never finish, and chill. The hard part of life is done: you are here and alive to read these words. As the Manifesto commands, ‘stop worrying about being perfect. Dedicate yourself to the pleasures and benefits of mediocrity.’ “

(Via 43 Folders.)

•