OK, so, just so we’re on the same page, this is the book we’re talking about: [大局観 自分と闘って負けない心 (角川oneテーマ21) | 羽生 善治 |本 | 通販 | Amazon], and the unofficial English title we’re giving it is The Big Picture: How to Face Yourself and Win.

Go back up through the series if you need a refresher on what we’re even talking about. Cool? Cool.

Right. Brass tacks time!

• 将棋であれ、スポーツであれ、ビジネスであれ、「勝負にはミスが付き物」と言っていいと思う。勿論、誰だってミスをする積もりなど微塵も無いけれど、パーフェクトなパフォーマンスを実現するのは至難の業だ。《中略》「今日の将棋は完璧だった、ミスも無く、百点満点のパーフォーマンスだった」と思える事は、私には殆ど無い。一、二年に一度、あるかどうかだ。
• Whether in shogi, sports, or business, I think that making mistakes is a normal part of any game. Of course, nobody deliberately intends to make mistakes, but perfect performance is virtually impossible…It virtually never happens that I can think “I played a 100% perfect game of shogi today and made zero mistakes”, except for maybe once every couple of years, if that.
• 将棋＝しょうぎ
• 勿論＝もちろん
• 微塵＝みじん
• 至難の業＝しなんのわざ
• 百点満点＝ひゃくてんまんてん
• 中略＝ちゅうりゃく
• 思う＝おもう
• 無い＝ない
• 殆ど＝ほとんど

It’s one thing for your mate, Todd, the pothead with a hoarding problem and illegitimate children he never sees (lol) to tell you to chill and that “making mistakes is…normal”; it’s another thing altogether for the greatest shogi player of all time to say it. ¹ You’d think that a 9×9 board would be small enough of a world that you could reliably experience some perfection, but it isn’t and you don’t — not even if you’re the GOAT. Not even if you’re the Japanese GOAT of a Japanese game. No perfection soup for you!

You cannot dependably produce perfection, but you can dependably produce improvement. And I only keep telling you this because I need to hear it myself; it’s a lesson I keep “teaching” because it’s a lesson I need to keep learning. If perfectionism is a disease, then…you know, I mean, first of all, ewww gross (lol). Secondly, it needs to be handled with ruthless efficiency — failing to prevent it or leaving it untreated is even grosser than having it, just like failing to clean dirty toilets is even grosser than having them dirty. ²

Aaaand, that’s all for now. I was gonna go longer, but I figure it’s better to keep these parts short and frequent, rather than force you to wait indeterminate amounts of time for one big, long, dump ³.

Take care and bye for now!