07/08/2026
The country just turned 250, and its founding documents are still making the same demand they made at the start. The Declaration promises the right to pursue happiness, which is not the same thing as promising happiness. Eleven years later, the Constitution opened by pledging a more perfect union, and that phrasing was chosen with care: 'more perfect', not 'perfect'. The founders wrote ongoing effort into the premise. Neither document describes a destination; both describe work that continues.
This same premise holds closer to home. A marriage, a family, a working life, a sense of who you are: none of them is ever finished, and the aim was never that they would be. The aim is that they keep becoming more perfect than they were.