Looking tensely at his patient, the experienced doctor feverishly checked his phone for confirmation of the start of the operation. Aware that the radioactive tracer he had injected into his patient was rapidly decimating, he wondered how he could have avoided this situation. Could he have been more careful when injecting the material? Could he have chosen a better date for the operation? Atul Gawande questioned his abilities as a medical provider. All humans make mistakes, but in a profession where human lives are at stake, mistakes are unacceptable. The search for perfection has seduced humans since the dawn of time, whether an athlete, politician or doctor, perfection has been sought for a long time. Yet after so much time, have humans gotten any closer to improving their performance, or has their obsession with perfection blinded them? “No choice will always be the right one. However, there are ways to make better choices. (63), The quest to increase one's performance and eventually achieve perfection has created many opportunities. Whether it's new innovations to increase productivity or faster machines to speed up reaction times, new opportunities for humans to improve their performance present themselves every day. Still at the most basic level, where all technology is stripped away, humans are naturally built to find the path of least resistance to achieve their goal. Very rarely will they complete every step of a goal correctly, regardless of innovations that give them more time to make decisions. We always hope for the easy way out: the one simple change that will erase a problem in one fell swoop. (21), shortcuts will likely be cut and steps will inevitably be skipped. Even doctors whose lives depend on them make mistakes. For example, hospitals are... middle of paper... that can foil even the best plans. Perfection does not have a single definition: “The act of making something perfect or better” - Merriam Webster. It is up to each individual to decide whether they have achieved perfection in their work, and the bar for determining this is also different for each individual. Ultimately, once the task is completed, individuals shouldn't necessarily ask themselves if they were perfect, they should ask themselves how they can improve their experience. Achieving perfection is a constant quest, when you think it was perfect, you also have to realize that it could have been better. When an individual thinks he is perfect, he gives up the pursuit of perfection. “Better is possible. It doesn't take genius. This requires diligence. This requires moral clarity. This requires ingenuity. And above all, you have to have the will to try.”