Perfectionism is a tricky flaw to have. It makes me want to do everything perfectly – and doing a thorough and awesome job at something can bring on the accolades, which in turn makes me want to be just as perfectionistic the next time.

But striving for perfection is stressful. And sometimes it stops me from doing anything at all.

Take my blog, for example. After not even having a blog for many years – especially embarrassing considering my profession, first as a web designer building custom WordPress sites and later as a WordPress Happiness Engineer – I finally launched one in late 2013. But I’ve only published 26 posts since then! I want each entry to be special and memorable, whether it’s a gallery of images I’ve taken, a story I tell, or an experience I’ve had.

Other bloggers I follow talk about their kids, or their cats, or…

Sometimes when you’re blogging it can feel like you’re talking into space. Not every post has lots of people interacting with it and, when you do have interactions, so often they are people that you’ve never met in real life. For some people this can be a very liberating medium to work in, but for others it can feel a little like broadcasting to no one.

But it’s not always like that.

Many years ago, when my mother and I were both blogging regularly, we had a subscriber in common. She found my mother’s blog first and began to follow mine as well, striking up interesting conversations in the comments as we discussed the ins and outs of our daily lives. Then one day she told us that she lived in New Zealand. My aunt lives in New Zealand and so my mother replied with the usual exclamation expecting the usual response:

“My sister lives…