The Garden Is Never Finished

This garden might never be finished, but working on it is most of the fun.

I spent my first ninety days in a new job doing something that sounds, frankly, unremarkable. I moved our messy, scattered systems into one centralized place. It wasn’t glamorous. There were no grand announcements, no sparkly unveilings—just the quiet, methodical work of pulling threads together until they formed something usable.

We moved to ClickUp. Everything started talking to each other. Things flowed. It reminded me of how rain pools in scattered puddles, and then—almost imperceptibly—finds a path to become a stream. That feeling, when the current catches, when the structure hums just a little? I live for that.

But it wasn’t perfect. Of course it wasn’t. We missed steps. Left out pieces. Assumed the merge meant wholeness, only to realize we’d forgotten entire limbs of the process. But what struck me wasn’t the oversight. It was how okay it all was. My boss simply said, “That happens.” I fixed the gaps. The flow improved.

And it made me think: how often do we wait to act because we’re afraid of getting it wrong?

In a past job, I worked under a leader who never said out loud that things had to be perfect—but the feeling was always there. Any time someone proposed a new idea, it was like we had to ask and answer ten thousand questions before we could take a single step forward. And if we couldn’t answer them all? Nothing happened. Sometimes we could answer them, and still—some invisible tension would bubble up, and forward motion would quietly dissolve. The result was the same: change didn’t come. Not because of caution, exactly, but because of paralysis.

At the time, it didn’t feel like discipline. It felt frustrating. Stuck. I didn’t want to move fast just to move, but I also didn’t understand why we couldn’t try something better, even if it wasn’t perfect. Maybe I was naïve, or maybe I just saw that waiting for flawless usually meant waiting forever.

And this isn’t just about work. It’s about gardens, too.

I didn’t plant one for years—not because I didn’t want one, but because the conditions weren’t quite right. I dreamed of a community plot with a lockable gate and a nearby spigot. Or better: two acres of my own land, right outside my door. Somewhere I could plant in the golden hours, or wander out on a whim in my pajamas without needing to text anyone or drive across town.

But that dream came with a lot of waiting. If it was a community garden, I’d need to get dressed and drive. If it was at a friend’s house, I’d have to double-check that I wasn’t intruding. And so I held off. I waited for the ideal.

Then a friend offered me a patch in her backyard. And I hesitated.

What if I was a burden? What if it didn’t rain? What if I couldn’t get over there enough and everything withered? What if I messed it up? But eventually, I just... planted. Imperfectly. Without a grand plan or map. In a garden full of termites from the long forgotten wooden borders with probably too little dirt. No one knew the dirt was on top of old concrete. But that’s okay. Its giving me something far more valuable than produce: permission.

To try.
To revise.
To return.

Whether I’m building a work system or growing tomatoes, I’ve learned that the perfect plan is a myth. The real work—the meaningful work—happens in the doing. In showing up even when the structure isn’t finished. Especially then.

So now, when I catch myself waiting—stalling until the system is flawless or the garden plot is ideal—I try to remember: the stream needs rain. The plants need a little mess. And the garden? The garden is never finished.