There’s an insidious form of DISTRACTION — which is that of COMPENSATION
When you failed — you ought to compensate
When you know you’ll fail — you COMPENSATE
But what if you can do the thing right?
If you can do the thing right — like it’s supposed to be done — then NOT doing it is wrong
The fact that you “compensated” for it doesn’t change it
Compensation here serves as a distraction
First you distract yourself — by focusing on something else — which is NOT the priority, NOT the point
Then you distract others with the same diversion
Therefore you’re deceiving yourself and others
It’s ubiquitous
You know your result is inadequate — but you hope nobody will notice
You hope you won’t notice
And you hope something else might make up for it
You hope there is an easier solution
Now, I don’t care if you don’t care
The only thing that matters is that you’re AWARE of it
Did you compensate because there was no other option — or did you compensate because you thought it would be easier than fixing the real problem?
Did you compensate because you decided fixing the thing wouldn’t result in sufficient improvement to justify expanding this extra effort — or did you compensate because you thought it would be easier than expanding this extra effort — even if it was justified?
This trend is particularly common when:
-one can conceal the fault entirely — pretending it was never relevant
-one can pretend that the compensation was all along more important than the lack
-one can compensate his inadequacy in one aspect with extraordinary achievement or skill in other aspect
it all hinges on the same mechanism: denying the problem in the first place — then installing a distraction.
Get over this trade-off mentality
DO compensate AFTER you failed — NOT before!
Some PART is either WELL-DONE or NOT-SO-WELL — regardless of how well-done the WHOLE is
Stop explaining away your minor faults and negligences with major successes
A fault is a FAULT
It can be tolerated — but it CANNOT BE DENIED
You can accept it but you can’t deny it
You can choose to improve it or you can choose to let it be — but if you deny it — then there’s nothing you can do
Please know what you’re doing