The first time around

My dad used to ask this question that would drive me absolutely bananas. It went something like this: If you don’t have time to do it right at first, how will you have time to fix it later? I usually got this when I’d rushed through homework or did a sloppy job mowing the lawn so I could go do something more fun. He was right, though: circling back around to make it better was never, ever on the agenda. I think about this a lot these days as we collectively measure things by volume — lines of code generated, hours theoretically saved, etc. — rather than quality. I’m still not persuaded that moving quickly is better than moving with consideration, care, purpose, or thought. https://multiline.co/mment/2026/04/the-first-time-around/