So the weather this weekend was the best we’ve had in a long time…bright and sunny and in the 60’s. And I overheard a comment in the elevator this morning about how “it could have been a little bit warmer.” Really? And that is the introduction to this topic that I’m sure I’ll have to come back to periodically:
When is good enough actually good enough?
Perfection is always out there, calling to us, sometimes daring us, sometimes mocking us, sometimes lying in wait to put a damper on what might otherwise be a success in the making. And I get the concept of striving to be the best, to push the limits, to reach for the stars and shoot for the moon. But I’m going to make a definitive statement: perfection is impossible.
Yes. It is. And I’ll only change my opinion when someone comes up with the perfect argument that proves that perfection is possible. But where we are is back to this topic that I’m already coming back to:
When is good enough actually good enough?
OK…I never left the topic. But for real…where does one draw the line? The line where, if you fall short, there is regret: I should have, I could have, I didn’t. The line where, if you try to push past, that pushing becomes an exercise in futility, draining and counter-productive and to an extreme, the creation of an obsession. The most obvious stage is the sports arena…athletes who hang on far too long chasing the perfect season (ahem, Brett Favre). But it exists in the corporate world, in parenting, in the religious world, in relationships. Is the grass greener on the other side? Am I missing out? Am I doing enough? Do I measure up? Am I being treated fairly? Otherwise stated, “Am I being treated good enough?”
As I truly believe and say all the time – life is short. Most of our lives are spent chasing abstracts…happiness, perfection, our purpose, our place. And to me, we spend a lot of time, or waste a lot of time, trying to define that abstract - What is perfection? What is happiness? An abstract by definition has no definition. And yet we try to define it. Why? Or better yet:
When is good enough actually good enough?
Related poetry:
http://jemacedopoetry.blogspot.com/2011/05/in-search-of-perfect-sunset-1992.html
You crack me up.....and you're so right.
ReplyDeleteActually I would argue perfection is possible but it is on an individual basis. For example someone may bake a cake and to them it is the most perfect cake ever, in fact it is so perfect that the person makes it the same way again and again, and it is always just as perfect. Now to someone else that cake may not be perfect, in fact far from it. IS the cake perfection? It depends on who you ask. I guess perfection, like beauty, is in the eye or mind of the beholder.
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