If Something's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing Badly...

For many reasons, among which is that trying and failing helps you really appreciate the skill and technique required to do it well.

G.K. Chesterton has many great quotes, including the line, “If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.” This seems to reverse the ordinary formulation, that anything worth doing is worth doing well, but the two sayings are complementary. If something is worth doing well, then it is worthwhile to try to do it yourself, and your first attempts will probably go badly. Mistakes will be made and, hopefully, learned from, but if you stick with it and keep trying, you will eventually do it well — at least well enough to enjoy it and derive benefit from doing it.

If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly . . . well, most things. You probably don’t want to do mountain-climbing “badly.” (Photo by Brad Barmore on Unsplash)

One of the benefits of trying to do something well, even if you end up doing it badly, is that you develop a real appreciation for the skill and technique required to do it well.

Anyone can enjoy watching a competition between athletes playing at the top of t…