PERFECTION

There isn’t any. So, give yourself a break!

One day, oh ages ago, I was at the optometrists (a very expensive exercise – being able to see clearly needs saving for) and she offered me a particular kind of contact lens that allows me to see far AND close up – (my eyes getting older and all)…

 

I said, Good gracious. I did not realise there was such a thing.  She said, Yes. Smiling, as she took the funny eye things off my face. They are not perfect of course, she said but pretty good. Certainly  better than the alternative – reaching for her own reading  glasses.

I was flabbergasted.  Not only by the new contact lenses but by her words. And the conversation has stayed with me much longer than it should have.  The absolute freedom of being able to say “well it is not perfect  – definitely the best we have at the moment.  Better than the alternative” – with such assured-ness Such – well – honesty.

Is this OK?  To be imperfect.  Beautifully accepted-ly imperfect. And promote it that way?

I had a worker here this summer who would spend ages, absolute ages, working at a task trying to get it perfect and exactly right, when Good Enough is perfectly good enough. I worked with him on it:  we called it the 60 percent of your time to solve a 2 percent of nothing problem.  The chickens really do not care if their walls are perfectly aligned as long as there are no holes for the Bastard Mink to get through. You will never get every single weed.

This is not to say that we can lower our standards – we must strive to improve and educate ourselves and learn.  To do better. To listen more and interrupt less. To see and to think. Otherwise why are we here on this wild planet. There is very real merit in striving for the very best we can do.

So the pursuit of perfection is a flawed enterprise yet knowing this we still seek it.

The perfect photo, the perfect pose, the perfect image – we all look for them on every page. Yet the unmade bed and the cobwebs and footprint on the floor also bring their own beauty if they did not nag at us so to get them straightened and cleaned up.

They say not to sweat the small stuff.  But if you look at that phrase from another angle  – the small stuff is much more productive to sweat over. Big problems often appear insurmountable. They block the horizon. A happy marriage. A healthy life. Money. Climate change. But what if we take these big problems apart and deal with them a little bit at a time. Deconstruct  them down to the sweatable small stuff – think about them quietly and  keep breaking that problem down into a pile of essential pieces of Lego and  watch the problems shrink to a manageable size.  Then deal with the problems that are your own and in your court.

Life is not fair. Life is not perfect.  Who ever promised me that? No-body. Most of this little stuff is just 2 percent of nothing – I won’t even remember it next week.  Life has a habit of going on whether we are paying attention to it or not. And we better damn well pay attention to the stuff we can sweat over instead of wasting time demanding perfection from somebody else. I know that sounds lonely but it is Life. And life is flawed.

For anyone lucky enough to have a device to read this on and a hot cup of coffee and a chair to sit in and lights to read by must surely admit that life is pretty damn good. It is not perfect but definitely the best we have at the moment. And getting better because striving for the best is on our nature. I think allowing ourselves to come in second best sometimes is OK.

Today is Tuesday – I pick for the weeks markets on Tuesday. Today I have orders for  100 nasturtium flowers, 10 pounds of eggplant and 12 dozen eggs. So I will be picking the moment it gets light.  Better move.

I hope you have a lovely day.

Love celi

WEATHER: It rained a lot on the night. Thunder and lightening for hours and with a hot day ahead the grass will do a bit of growing which is very good.

 

 

c