A good enough "good enough"

We are capable of understanding when things are good and when things are bad. Whatever our criteria for deeming such to be the case, regardless of how askew our perceptions or ridiculous our boundaries may be, there is such a thing as a graspable sense of when things are okay and when things are not.

The issue at hand comes not from this perceptive ability — we cannot quite rid ourselves of it no matter how hard we attempt to philosophically intoxicate ourselves — but from how we feel about it. 

A chilling realization crawls through our mortal coils at some point in our youth where we realize that we are, in fact, not infallible. We are not perfect, never have been and never will be. The search for perfection is rewarded in our society, inculcated with every reward and punishment into the very fundamental fabric of our neural synapses, but deep down we know it is not truly feasible. One will never excel at every skill, nail every test, seduce their every acquaintance. One will never always speak the right words at the right turn, and make the most accurate decision. Yes, there are certain amounts of luck or lack of information involved in such failures, but simply put, even with perfect capacities of both, we will err. And err harshly we will. 

Everyone is cognizant of this fact of our existence, our perpetual imperfection, and as such we recognize that expecting perfection from ourselves or others is outright ridiculous (even though we do not necessarily act on this). Yet, by the same token, we are certain that we can succeed to some degree. Certainly, we are not foolproof, but we do not fail at every single activity we pursue. As it is impossible for us never to fail, it is equally unfeasible to always fail. 

In the end, we lie in a spectrum, betwixt perfection and absolute deficiency. 

And one is left adrift, aimlessly asking oneself one key question.

When are we good enough?

Demanding too much from oneself is unhealthy. It is a recurring trend amongst the aspiring, as they have been whispered the folklore of entrepreneurial, nigh cult-like, achievement. After all, we do on occasion observe that it is not all luck: some of the things we attain in our life are indeed the direct effect of our actions. Sometimes if we do try hard enough, we will get that which we desire. So we commit the inductive fallacy, choosing to believe the sweet lie, the childlike belief in the idea that absolutely everything is possible if one craves it enough. Yet that is not how the world works, is it? To punish myself for not attaining the power of flight is a laughable idea, but one that is not too far off from the impossibilities those around us demand from us again and again. And so, we hurt, asphyxiating fish aimlessly flopping atop the land, attempting to breathe oxygen that was never meant for us. We shriek and sob at the misery of not being able to do that which we never could. 

Yet not demanding anything of oneself is equally unhealthy. If we cannot bear the thought of forcing ourselves to commit to the most basic of necessities, we will lead quite the harrowing life. Procrastination is a debt, one that accrues interest and swallows you deeper within itself with every passing moment. Once you miss one thing, missing the next becomes so much easier, and by the third there is no point at all in even trying, becoming apathetic to the most essential of needs. Why sleep? Why eat well? Why exercise? Why care? Why not ignore all and become numb? This is a dangerous, ever-worsening path to take. Clearly, we require a degree of anxiety and hurt to push us out of not doing anything at all — the right type of suffering may very well play the role of a positive force, pushing us away from bad habits. 

And thus, to be good enough becomes an entirely subjective matter. It is easy to ridicule the extremes, we understand that our answer does not reside in them, but where is it? How much exactly should we really expect from each other? What truly separates a reasonable requirement from inhuman orders? How do we measure this spectrum, how do we pinpoint the location where we maximize our satisfaction? What does it mean to be “good enough”? Is it a matter of effort, of attention, of care, of struggle, of luck, of skill? Who ought we to compare ourselves with? What should we desire?

When is “good enough,” good enough?

The reason satisfaction is the curse of awareness is that we can intuitively sense that there must exist a point in which “good enough” is truly good enough. Somewhere in the spectrum, most surely, there must be a proper answer … correct?

Perhaps, no.

Perhaps, as with many other human matters, a good enough “good enough” does not exist at all. Perhaps what is to be expected from us cannot be measured at all, and the search for it is a pursuit without end. Certainly, some may acquire some benefit from such an approach, from pretending there exists a reachable goal, but such farces ought not to motivate us. To lie to ourselves rather than embracing a comprehension that it is all ultimately arbitrary may very well set us up for disappointment. I do not believe that subjectivity or arbitrariness diminishes the value of the act at all. Quite the opposite, it permits an unprecedented degree of freedom.

Indeed, once we come to terms with the fact that we have the maximal authority to set our contentment benchmark in whichever location on the spectrum where we desire other than the extremes, we may finally realize that we have always been good enough.