On My Mind Monday

For a woman to say she is searching for a “good enough” life is not failure — it is maturity and self-knowledge.

Why Women Should Embrace A "Good Enough" Life

Elsa Walsh

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I read this piece earlier and it reminded me of something I've kept with me from Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project: Don't let perfect ruin good.  No, don't.  Wouldn't that be a shame?

Good enough.  A couple seemingly benign words that pack a punch.  The enough qualifying and patronizing and marginalizing the good.  There is a feeling of judgement to say that any task, effort, or accomplishment is good enough.  Good enough suggests that whatever it was could certainly be better.

And yet I have had the experience of age Walsh more eloquently refers to as maturity and self-knowledge to believe that good enough is good enough, but there is a caveat.  The moral lies in the compassionate gift of self-acceptance.  As women, we have to give ourselves and other women permission to be imperfect without fear of reproach or reprisal.

I think about the expectations I have for my children.  How many times have I told them that I am happy as long as they are doing their best?  Countless, and I am.  Their best...not mine.  Why wouldn't I give myself the same grace? 

Frankly, I'm not fool enough to believe there's any such thing as having it all.  At least not all the time.  Life is a balancing act regardless of so many sets of circumstances.  As soon as I feel like I've achieved equilibrium in mine, harmony is disrupted. I'm reminded that the only failure I risk, is to give up trying to be good enough  whatever that means at present.