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There is a point in doing things at times for exacting quality, and at times for endurance. They have different purposes. Sometimes, it’s good to do ten perfect push-ups, nice and slow. And sometimes, to do as many as you can in a minute. The point is that it’s teaching your body different things, and they are both useful skills to have, and are both hard in their own way. Hating on those without perfect form when they’re working endurance, or hating on those who only do ten when working on form misses the point.

But I’m not really talking about just push-ups here. I’m talking about writing. And running. And all of life, really.

In life, there is a difference between learning and performing. When learning, you play. You take risks. You try new things. You do things you would never do in front of an audience or for a finished product. Otherwise, you’re never going to reach your full potential—you’ll be stunted at what you could do before you started taking everything so seriously. We should always be willing to learn—and to support others when they’re learning. We’ve all been there. And besides, you never know when someone you’ve helped will turn around and show you something brilliant and new, something you never thought of before.

Performing, on the other hand, is doing something practiced to produce a finished product which is as perfect and as flawless as possible—and here, you take fewer risks. You use those skills you built when learning. Because performing is all about working thoughtfully and intentionally. Performing, of course, also takes practice to get good at.

I don’t think anyone believes NaNoWriMo is about performing. It’s about learning. And I will always support learning, and playing, and taking risks in order to grow.

Respect what other people are working on, even if it’s not for you. There’s no reason not to.