Perfection Revisited
I keep coming back to the issue of perfection. I was thinking about it again as I watched Tiger Woods on television. Woods is as close to perfect as I've seen yet he does (occasionally) miss shots, lose tournaments, fail to hit the shot he intends. When he's playing his best, nobody in the world can beat him. He's done almost everything in golf so what keeps him going, what keeps him trying to improve his game. I've heard him say that you can always be better. I equate that to the quest for perfection, probably an impossible quest, but a noble quest, a quest that enables him to stay the best.
Tiger Woods is not the only one striving for perfection. I meet many people who strive for perfection in their pursuits. I admire this trait. I think we all should do our best and striving for perfection is a good way to keep doing our best. If we want to do, to be our best, we must have targets, we must have goals. The goal of a perfect performance is a worthwhile one, although difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. I've strived for perfection in some of my activities but I've never come close. The goal kept me going, kept me trying so I count it as worthwhile. The problem arises when we can't accept that failure to achieve perfection is not the same thing as failure in the pursuit, failure in life.
It's like the old saying that we must not let perfect be the enemy of good. That is, we must not let the quest for perfection, or even the laudable goal of doing better, bring us to scorn the good. I urge that doing our best is the most important thing. After all, we can't do better than our best. And we should be pleased when we succeed in doing our best, no matter how that may compare to other people's best, to our goals.
Let's keep trying to do our best, let's keep trying to be perfect, but let's not expect perfection. If we consistently do our best, let's pat ourselves on the back. It's all we can do.
8-28-06
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