Perfectionism

As I was leading the second seder, I said “hamotzi” and broke, distributed, and ate the matzah without saying “al achilat matzah.” Later, during shulchan orech, I realized and announced my mistake, but did nothing about it because I knew the brachah couldn’t be said post facto.

The halakhah says I did the right thing, but for the rest of the day, I felt a compulsion to say it, as if it existed on my tongue and I was wrongly delaying its escape. I noticed myself thinking about this again today, as if my seder was “incomplete” and will take a year to be made right.

I feel as if the amount of consistent “davening” (if you can call it that) I’ve done over the years has brought out my perfectionism so that I’m focusing on not getting things wrong more than doing new things.