Ditch perfection for good enough and there you'll find joy

​I'm sure I've missed out on a lot of good times in my life because good times weren't good enough for me. I've missed out on good while waiting for - maybe even demanding or expecting - perfect times.

Writing is one area in my life when I've become comfortable with good. And when I did, I discovered joy in an activity where I once found little.

I used to write a sentence. Re-read it. Re-write it. Over and over again until it sounded perfect. Only to write the next sentence, which not only had its own imperfections, but it also sounded like an imperfect match for the sentence before it.

So back to re-writing sentence one.

Then one day I decided I'm not as interested in being a perfect writer as I am in writing good enough for people to understand what I'm thinking. I decided being a good messenger was much more important to me than crafting the perfect message.

I wonder, how many people are out there today re-writing their roles as parents, their roles as spouses and friends, their roles in their jobs or in their hobbies like running. How many people are missing out on good times in those spaces while working to exhaustion to make those spaces perfect?

How many people miss out on the chance to feel good about what they're doing for fear that others won't think it's perfect enough? Because I can tell you, the perfect situations we come to believe a lot of people are living in - we might be surprised by how people can get to feeling like they are drowning in those situations.

Sometimes 'good enough' isn't a lowering of standards. It's a facing of reality. It's facing the understanding that perfection is a lie, which makes it an imperfect place to start when we're pursuing joy.

Sometimes a lack of joy isn't because life isn't good, it's because perfection convinces us good isn't good enough.

Today, maybe in some area of your life, stop and pause. Stop and pause and avoid speculating about how good that area can be one day, and treasure how good it already is.

For a moment, ditch perfection for good. And maybe there you will find joy.