Perfect Honeycombs

You know those internal struggles that have been around since time forgotten? What I've discovered is they don't go away; the best you can do is work on them diligently and improve yourself measure by measure. It's a process in phases, not a definite line to be reached and then crossed, leaving your issues behind you forever.

What does this have to do with honeycombs? Well, it's about the struggle for perfection. I battled it in school, in crafting Suzuyaki pottery in Japan, and I still face it in everyday life. Recently a memory has come to my aid... an insight that came to me from harvesting honey back in 2014:

Note the uncapping in the upper-left.

Laurén and I were standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the small, humid honey hut on my uncle's property. On the counter, built on the front and back of each wooden frame pulled from the hive, was a honeycomb made of tiny perfect hexagons. Behind the pale wax was the oozing, golden honey we were after. To proceed, we had to cut the caps off so the honey could drain into a filter. My uncle demonstrated how to do this with a serrated uncapping knife: with a steady sawing motion, he slid the blade through the tops of the caps and the honeycomb fell in chunks into the bucket below. It looked easy enough, so I had a try. I watched the combs, anxious to see the honey pour out as I cut it free. It was hard to keep my hand steady; when I sawed at the caps I was also gashing the wooden frame with the end of the knife and splintering it.

My uncle was less than pleased. After a few more failed slashes, I was feeling useless and guilty for destroying chunks of the frame. That's when I was told the advice that changed the experience: my eyes should be on the knife, keeping the end flat along the opposite edge; I shouldn't be focusing on the center honeycomb at all. You need to focus on the work itself, not the results.

It's easy to get obsessed with the results we desire from perfection and beat ourselves up over our mistakes, but that's not where our focus should be at all. I remember in the book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield explained how the work belongs to us but the results belong to God. I can plant the seed, water it, weed the soil, etc., but God brings forth the fruit of that plant.

I tried again: with the next frame held upright before me, I kept my focus on the knife. I didn't watch the caps fall in one smooth sheet, but that's what they did; freed, the honey slowly poured out. I remember Laurén was impressed by how perfectly the caps had separated. A part of me was a little sad that I didn't get to see it, but if I had looked then it probably wouldn't have happened.

You could label my initial attempt as a "failure," but a failure can show you where a change needs to be made. Failure is a strong word that could be used to describe any gap, tiny or great, between our ideals and our performance. It doesn't diminish your value as a human being. Failure = where change is needed... could it be that simple? If we give ourselves permission to "fail" and figure things out as we go, perhaps the anxiety of perfection and the avoidance of any and all shortcomings wouldn't hold us back emotionally.

If things don't go as well as you'd wanted, you still know you did your best. And hopefully you did it for the goodness and love of it. In my case, for the love of honey. 🍯

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