Churchill's wit here cuts deeper than a simple plea for self-improvement—he's insisting that perfection *cannot* be a fixed destination we reach and occupy. Most of us imagine improvement as climbing toward some static ideal, but he reverses that: the very act of becoming better means you're abandoning yesterday's version of better. A surgeon who performs the same technique for forty years, never questioning her methods, will eventually fall behind her field; the surgeon who tinkers, doubts, and adjusts remains genuinely skilled. The real provocation is that restlessness—often seen as a character flaw—might actually be the mark of someone worth emulating.