I'm not Perfect

A parent at the school, a new friend, told me today that she marvels at my ability to get everything done that I do.  I explained that all I do is put one foot in front of the other.

She asked if she could help with what I was doing and I gladly gave her a task...she was doing it when she asked if I was a perfectionist...and I laughed and said that I most certainly was not.  "Good enough!" is my mantra far more often than not.  Pondering this, it occurred to me that in reality, I don't have TIME for perfection.  I have too much to do.  It doesn't all get done well...hell, sometimes it doesn't even get done...but if I strived (strove?) for perfection, I doubt any of it would get at all.

Michael has something he calls the 95% rule.  The idea is that to get a task 95% of the way done takes a certain amount of time. Then, the last 5% of that task very often, can take almost as much.  It's all in the details.  He applies this rule to coding, to housejobs, to gardening...and while the point of this rule is not to invalidate the importance of that last 5%, it does often happen by default, resulting in us only getting things *most* of the way done, because those last details are just plain tedious...and can take us away from doing 95% of something else.  Back to my mantra, "good enough".  Because, really, there are a LOT of tasks that need doing.  Once we've gotten to something where "good enough" IS good enough, we often move on.  I applaud those detail oriented folks who want everything to be JUSTEXACTLYRIGHT before they move on to the next thing...but that's just not me.  I have stuff to do, and not enough time to do it in as it is, much less if I fuss over getting every last thing *just so*.  Perfectionism is for those people who post stuff on pintrest.  I can't...I just can't.  I applaud those who do, don't get me wrong...we need a world of diversity.  We need a world where people pay attention to detail and where people plow through getting loads of stuff done.  We need people to create beauty, people to appreciate it, people to make stuff, people to buy stuff (although the fact that there is too much stuff in the world is a whole other blog post) and people to clean up when all the stuff is gone.  We need those pintrest people and we also need the people that haven't ever even been on pintrest (raises hand).  Everyone has a gift to give...contentedness comes when we learn to be happy with whatever that is.  Am I a perfectionist?  Far from it...but another friend just told me I poop rainbows, which I think was a compliment.

Children's entertainer, Laurie Berkener, who saved many a car ride when my kids were toddlers, has a song called "I'm Not Perfect".  The lyrics to the chorus are
I'm not perfect, no I'm not.
I'm not perfect, but I've got what I've got.
I do my very best, I do my very best, I do my very best each day...
But I'm not perfect, and I hope you like me that way.

Those lyrics might be wrong...I am writing them from memory, and, well, I'm not perfect.  :)