Imperfect Progress

I made an offhand comment earlier tonight which I think might become the subject of a book.

In a conversation about quitting smoking, which I have succeeded at 4 or 5 times this year already, someone was talking about how they had done well for a while and then backslid. I told them that I had recently backslid as well, and that the important thing to do was to not dwell on the mistake, but to simply focus on continuing to make progress, even on days where the progress becomes imperfect.

Every day that I do succeed feels a bit like drawing golden lines over myself. But, if I have no places that are broken, there isn’t anywhere to put the gold.