Le mieux est le mortel ennemi du bien.
~ Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron of La Brède ~
French is one of dozens of languages I wish I had studied and mastered. But I did not. So I could not translate the sentence above into English without help. No, that’s not correct. I did not just have help. I relied entirely on what I believe to be someone else’s translation, which is, literally, “The best is the mortal enemy of the good.” A less literal but more generally accepted English translation is the aphorism: “Perfect is the enemy of the good.” Too often, I make half-hearted attempts at perfection, only to be disappointed at the inadequacy of the outcome. Even full-throated efforts frequently yield less than perfect results. Those disappoint me, too. Although I recognize, appreciate, and subscribe to the concept of the golden mean, I commonly make the mistake of permitting my thinking to stray from what I know to be logical and productive. Rather than requiring myself to function, mentally, between two extremes, I wander into the far end of the Pareto principle, wherein I devote 80% of my energy toward attempting to achieve the 20% of an undertaking that is not worth my time and effort. In attempting to find some wording to explain the golden mean better than I can do on my own, I came upon this phrase in Wikipedia: “…in the Aristotelian view, courage is a virtue, but if taken to excess would manifest as recklessness, and, in deficiency, cowardice.” If I had insisted on coming up with my own descriptive phrase, I would have been guilty of wasting my efforts in attempting to create something that already existed.
Though I often chastise myself for failing to achieve perfection, I know better than to believe my admonitions in their entirety. I’m not completely invested in faulting myself for my flaws, in other words. Here’s another quotation, this one from my little black book of Zen-influenced ruminations:
The One and the All.
Mingle and move without discriminating.
Live in this awareness and you’ll stop worrying
about not being perfect.~ Sen Tsan ~
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Not long ago, I wrote a to-do list; a reminder of tasks I needed to start or complete. Writing a list sometimes helps me remember things I otherwise might put off so long that they simply do not get done. I came across that list this morning. Four of the twenty items on the list remain undone. Responsibilities for two of those shifted to someone else who was paid to get the jobs done. One was deemed unnecessary, after all. One remains to be added to another to-do list. That other to-do list is already longer than the original 20-item list. Some days, it seems like I’ll never catch up; as if I’ll never get to have a few completely lazy days without feeling a sense of guilt for things that remain undone, including things that grow increasingly urgent and troubling by the day. It’s not simple lazyness that prevents me from completing my list. It’s also a lack of discipline and an intense dislike for getting enmeshed in some of the items on my list. Yet they must be done; I’ll pay deeply unpleasant consequences if they don’t. The solution, of course, is to set aside a few days dedicated exclusively to engaging in those tasks; foregoing my morning coffee and blogging and other pleasant introductions to the day and, instead, focusing on productivity from the moment I get out of bed until the sky darkens at nightfall. As unpleasant as that sounds, the sense of accomplishment and the elimination of dread will make the sacrifice worth it. Won’t it? Maybe. We’ll soon see. But not today. Not tomorrow. But soon.
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Making jokes at the expense of others demonstrates a lack of top-of-mind compassion, at best. At worst, it can put the joke-teller in dangerous waters with an awful undertow. I have a history of too often treading those waters and later wishing passionately I could return to dry land; to the moment before the tide touched my feet. But only when one is the brunt of the joke is the lesson crystal clear. The experience, for the joke-teller, is a little like playing with fire. But unlike playing with fire and getting burned, those jokes can drown both the teller and the “told.” They can undermine trust and turn solid relationships soft as rotten bananas. “Good natured” jokes at another’s expense are not good natured at all. Especially if they poke at a “tender spot,” they parallel the power plays between bullies and bullied. As I think back on jokes I’ve told at someone else’s expense, I cringe and wish I hadn’t told them. Has the lesson settled in on me, changing my behavior? Time will tell, as it always does.
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My IC and I went to Clampit’s yesterday, where she bought two enormous rib-eye steaks. Tonight, for dinner, I plan to grill the steaks, bake some potatoes, and make a nice, healthy salad (to counteract cholesterol-laden steak). My IC and I will enjoy the decidedly decadent meal in anticipation that her house will sell quickly for a price she finds satisfactory. She discovered last night that quite a number of people had already viewed the listing on Realtor.com and several had saved the listing, presumably to return to it later for a closer look and, perhaps, a visit with a Realtor. We look forward to the time we can relax and look back on the time we moved her furniture to this house with fondness. In the meantime, we’ll deal with the stress of selling a house and moving or otherwise disposing of furniture; having a nice steak tonight will help smooth the stress, I hope.
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Time to have more coffee and get ready for church. Ach. Some Sundays, church does not have the allure I wish it did. Onward, though, through the day.
