Everything is temporary – seasons, people, things. Your creations are no exception to this truth. Progress is how life keeps getting better. Every form of progress begins with optimism. Optimism is being aware that the creation or discovery of the right knowledge can lead to the identification and improvement of problems. The death of optimism implies the termination of progress. 

Your creation is meant to be experienced, not worshiped. Experiencing it brings fulfillment, but also reveals its limits. These limits present an opportunity for you to maintain the course of progress by uncovering the right knowledge for iterations. This is the healthy cycle of every creation. 

Here’s what happens when you deify a creation.

Overestimation of Current and Future Capabilities

Worshiping a creation makes you blind to its flaws. You’re tied to the viewpoint that the creation answers all questions and there’s no more improvements to be made. Rather than experience the creation as it is and advise others to do so, you make grandiose extrapolations of its capabilities — even when it can’t be used for those things yet. These behaviors of finality and grandiosity hinders your ability to recognize the existing problems of the creation. A mind that chooses not to recognize problems can’t keep optimism alive. The death of optimism stops knowledge creation, hence the termination of progress. 

Immunity to Criticism

As mentioned earlier, optimism is kept alive through the recognition of problems. Criticism is how the problems of your creation are recognized. Worshiping your creation makes it a dogma, which aims at shielding it from criticism. When everything regarding a creation is immune to questioning, problems can’t be uncovered. Criticism sustains the infinite progress of a creation.

Delay of Iteration When Necessary

Iterating your creation rapidly and getting it out there keeps the progress loop running. Iteration is the process of creating knowledge for new problems recognized during criticism. Further criticism of the iterated version exposes more problems, which fuels the optimism to create new knowledge. Worshiping a creation attaches you to its current form and steals your attention from problems to be solved. As a result, the iteration process is slowed — and optimism is jeopardized.