Striving For ... Good Enough

"If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done."

~ Ecclesiastes 11:4

Before we walked on stage to sing together, my friend Mari would say two things: "Loud and Proud" and "Wrong and Strong." She would shout them out and we would laugh, releasing a lot of tension.  They became mantras for us, reminding us that we didn't have to be perfect; we just had to go out there and give it our best shot. Of course we were never perfect, but we were always good enough. And if we were having a good time and could laugh at ourselves, people loved us.

Loud and Proud and Wrong and Strong have become more than just mantras for performing. They've become life mantras for me. My house is a mess, I am chronically late, my kids spend too much time on the computer, I don't exercise regularly, my husband and I have unresolved marital issues, I procrastinate, I have poor money management skills, the dog has dreadlocks from lack of proper grooming, and I don't floss regularly, just to name a few of the many ways in which I fall short of perfection. BUT, I am good enough.

I have decided to make it my mission to model imperfection. I've wasted a lot of time not doing things I love out of fear that I would not be good enough. I am done with that. Life, as they say, is too short. I'm not planning to take up skydiving anytime soon, and I won't summit Everest in this lifetime. But I would like to have people over for dinner, even though the house is far from spotless. And I am going to perform my newly written songs at an open mic even though my guitar playing is mediocre. I just want to try to live a little more authentically, doing the things I love and sharing them with other people imperfectly. As my hero, Anne Lamott says, "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people." If I can help just one person take one small step out of their fear and into their dreams, my mission will be a success.

I am going to publish this post. It isn't perfect, but if I wait for perfection I will never write another word. I'm going to bed now. It's good enough.