What’s Wrong With Good Enough?
It’s Friday morning and I scroll through Twitter/X/whatever it’s called. I come across a tweet (do we still call them tweets now we are living in the new X world?) that began “I thought I was fine but…”
The poster said he had three kids, a full time job and a book coming out. He felt as if his daughter hated him and he was doubting everything.
I don’t normally comment on the tweets/posts/musings of people I don’t know or who I have no connection with. But I felt for him. I knew that there he was, outwardly looking great, in control, capable. What’s he got to complain about? He has a family, a job, a life. Doesn’t he realise how grateful he should be? I recognised that, inside, he probably felt as if he was being crushed by guilt and anxiety, thinking nothing worked, his family didn’t care, his daughter didn’t even like him and wondering why nothing he did was good enough. I left him a reply telling her I thought he was amazing and to stop doubting himself. He was good enough.
I know all of this, because it is how I feel on a daily basis. It’s the stab of guilt as the kids get out of the car and I wonder what more I could have done to help them with their homework; it’s the doubt I feel when I give advice to the people I work with, wondering if this time I might have got it wrong. It’s the feeling that I want to run off and hide when I stare down the barrel of yet another logistical problem I must find a way to solve, knowing that whatever I come up with will be yet another compromise that not everyone will be happy about.
We don’t all get it right every day. Yet instead of accepting this, we continue to strive for perfection. I don’t want to do this anymore. Whilst striving for excellence in everything I do is a worthy thing, I am tired of beating myself up when I don’t make it.
Not so long ago, I read the Professor Thomas Curran Book ‘The Perfection Trap’ and talked about the ability to ‘Be Good Enough’. Here’s the link to his website – thomascurran.co.uk. I learnt that perfection is unattainable. It’s a dream that became my nightmare. Perfect wives, partners, mothers, professionals, human beings just don’t exist. Whilst this is disappointing and what a lot of what I once believed to be true has turned out to be a load of old rubbish, it’s also come as a huge relief. I don’t have to be that person anymore and I quite like that. Now I want to know more about why ‘Good Enough’ seems to be looked upon in such a derisory way. Why isn’t ‘Good Enough’ really good enough?
Let’s start with that phrase first – ‘good enough’. For some reason, the idea of being good enough seems to have become the equivalent to being average. And who wants to be average? What’s great about that? We live in a society now where being average isn’t fun or beautiful or amazing. It’s just sort of, whatever, a nothingness, just getting on with it, nothing special.
For me this is where the problem begins. We now seem to have an expectation that every day must be glorious. It must sing with happiness. There must be joy in everything you do. We must find the laughter and be the best that we can be. Why? Because that is what the people on the TV say you must do. Or in the online media.
This is the way everyone’s life looks on Facebook and Instagram. When I scroll through my friend’s pages, I never see the days when the rain is coming down horizontally, I see the pictures of the bright sunshine and the smiles as they relax on distant beaches or far away places that I’ve always wanted to see. When I talk to anyone, they never tell me that they are broke, tired, stressed out and have just had another row with their kids. They tell me that life is great, full of wonderful events and love and exciting prospects. We never discuss the daily grind, the torture of the Wi-Fi playing up, the fact that your mother is poorly and you are worried out of your mind.
Being average isn’t interesting. The things that really happen to us every day are just plain dull. No one wants that. That’s muted, grey and boring. And no one wants anyone else to know about it either.
And yet. If you look up what is great about being average – or right about good enough – you will find that there is a lot to be really positive about. People who do not constantly strive for perfection are happier. Their expectations are more realistic and so they cope better in the ‘real’ world (the world where things go wrong, the sun doesn’t always shine and coffee isn’t instantly available everywhere). They are more flexible, they beat themselves up far less and have a far healthier take on life and how to live it. These people are fitter, more successful and well-balanced. They don’t feel overwhelmed so much and their anxiety and depression levels are far less than those that spend their days tirelessly striving to be the greatest.
So being average is surprisingly great! In fact, you can still strive for the great and be average – or good enough. Every day that I have those thoughts where I worry that maybe I could have tried harder or done something better, I’m now working on stopping that argument in my head and telling myself that it doesn’t matter. I am good enough at a time when I need to be. Sometimes you will achieve what you thought you could not. Those days will be fabulous and you will shine in the sun. But it is also time to embrace the bad days and accept they exist too. When they happen it is ok. Those days are meant to be there. They are meant to happen. Unless they did, we would never understand just how wonderful life can be.
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