12. Laurel: it's good enough

The topic of this entry, I've made before in my Africa series. (ha - I like that I think I have series). The message of this entry isn't so different from the first so I won't rehash it all.  But Laurel's lesson of 'it's good enough' has long been on this developing list.  I remember distinctly standing in her kitchen, her left hand leaning on her counter, sharing her revelation: "you know, sometimes it's just good enough."  The image and the message have stayed with me for many years. 

In this age of Martha Stewart perfection, curated social-media renditions of ourselves, and airbrushed photo-shopped magazine spreads, to name a few, it's stupid easy to forget that things don't have to be perfect.  Actually, they shouldn't be perfect.  It's ok to stop, and accept that good enough can just be good enough.

Ok, fine.  I still get hung up about a few things.  I won't go out with chipped nail polish, a coat with a missing button, or boots that need heels replaced (clack clack clack). But for most things in life, I've grown to accept, and in fact embrace, that sometimes what it is, is just good enough.  Man, she's right.  This simple word of wisdom washed a wave of relief over me, and let me off the hook.  To dismiss the pressure I put on myself, in fact to write so publicly exposing my fallibility (gasp), has been a process - one that has been hard to cede, but a veritable relief once realized.

Life is too short to get hung up on the pursuit of perfection.  I don't need to spend it worrying about things that won't mean a thing in a hundred years.  I think we need to worry about things that really do matter - not external perceptions that grow from other people's hangups, but the things that truly enrich our own lives and those of others.  The nails / boots / buttons notwithstanding.