 Spiritual: November 19, 2014 Issue [#6667] |
  Spiritual
This week: When Good Enough IS Enough Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.
Isaac Asimov
Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.
George Eliot
Perception and choice significantly influences the quality of life we experience - i.e., we set the course we follow by how we interpret and react to what we perceive the situations we encounter demands.
Samurai ponderings
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I am good enough 
Deciding what is good "enough" and then sticking to it, I think is a very underrated virtue. How much of the pressure, the busyness, the competition, the unhappiness, and the inability to see the possibilities in ourselves results from our failure to practice this discipline?
People working on an assembly line with established goals for "productivity." The workers meet those goals but find it's not enough—that the standards have been raised. You open a store, hoping that sales might reach half a million dollars some day. That goal is met, but it is no longer enough. A lawyer or accountant puts in extra hours on a big case, only to find three more assignments added to his or her load.
We need to build into our days ways of reminding ourselves of what is enough along with strategies for sticking to our decisions. Consider it a spiritual discipline for the workplace, whether that workplace be offsite or at home. Just like contemplative spiritual disciplines - meditation, bible stuy and prayer - how about disciplines for the spirituality of our work, of our living. How about learning to say "enough" and learning to live with imperfection.
Take a look around ~ your home, your image, your friends, family, and yes, your writing. It may not be what the fairy tales incite, or what fantasy films offer, but there are successes and joys each day. By living each day, accepting the failures (which are evidence of having tried one path, and having failed that path, finding another to take), and successes, don't you see that you're good enough?
With your writing, as with other tasks you undertake, consider the following and decide what's good enough for you ~
With a large group of our Community currently engaged in NaNoWriMo, just think, if we each stopped to perfect every phrase, sentence, paragraph. The novel (or stories, or novella, or chapbook) would ever be a someday thing, rather than now (or near-future). NaNo shows us that imperfect is worthwhile - it's taking a step, carving one letter, then another and another, on that blank page. It's daring the journey, and taking pride in the effort.
With NaNo, editing will follow, but have any of us ever said, 'this is perfect' after submitting our written work, be it for reviews or publication? Be honest, now. And, though we deem it imperfect, are we not proud of that work, of the effort in creating and bringing it to its current state of readiness.
Think about it. Life is likewise an imperfect journey. We take one step, then another and another; make a choice, then modify and edit the results of our action. But how much do we need to edit, to modify, to second-guess, our choice, our steps. When is the Effort and Success (or Failure) Enough?
It's up to me to decide for myself, likewise for each of you to decide for yourselves, just how much effort on a particular project is enough, and part of that decision is based on the amount of success we aspire to or the amount of failure we will tolerate. We make this decision daily, whether we notice or not. Use the same premise when you submit a story or poem to a contest. If it's not a winner, or is returned unaccepted, decide if you need to revise, resubmit, or let it go for awhile as other projects beckon.
The question then becomes, how much success (or failure) is enough? When is it time to let the project go, set it aside and continue working on other projects, or start something new, or take a course to develop skills, or take a walk, or a drive in the countryside. Whatever your decision at the moment, the fact that you try, and acknowledge setbacks, think of ways to change your path, or accept the setbacks and find another path, it's good enough because you've made a decision ~ you've engaged the matter and made a choice. Besides, the next contest, or publication, or reviewer, may be the one to say, "in my opinion, this is good enough to win/publish/rate highly."
Likewise the choices I make, the actions I take, in my life. I organize and clean a room. It looks nice, it's comfortable, it's clean. Then, someone comes to visit and offers "kind critique" of the arrangement of books, or finds a stray cathair on the back of a chair (the fact that kitty just jumped off the chair should have some relevance here?).
Do you redo the room? Do you get angry with your friend? Do you get angry with yourself? Or, do you say, "It's my work, and it may not be perfect for my friend, or for me, but I did the work, it''s neither awful nor perfect, it's somewhere in between, and I'm okay with that. It's good enough 
"Enough" in this context signifies the ideal balance for me between "too much" and "too little."
 Whenever you decide that you have not spent enough time or effort on a project, ask yourself what will be "enough." Write that down and stick to it.
Try this ~ Make a list of your "greatest failures"—those goals you did not accomplish - that later turned out to be not so important. Keep the list posted in your workspace and add to it regularly.
Likewise, accept the limitations in others as well. Embrace their desire for growth, encourage their aspirations, and console them when they falter that they continue to strive while accepting that they are good enough to do so.
Perfection is an overrated illusion. The idea that our work can be perfect is, on the face of it, absurd. If humankind is constantly evolving, gaining knowledge, skills, then is it not implicit and we are imperfect, and that it's okay to be so ?? On the few occasions that a man or woman achieves perfection, we call it genius and the accomplishment a masterpiece. But for most people most of the time, our work will be less than perfect—less, even, than what we are capable in our best moments.
So, I'm not perfect, but I'm good enough ~ and I'm glad of it! You each are good enough, and I'm glad of that as well !
So, Write On
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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I invite you to read the following offered by members of our Community and take a moment if you can to share your thoughts with a comment or review and along the way, create a character, good enough, of your own
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This is a poem for anyone who has ever felt like they aren't good enough.
#1729644 by Silent Writer  |
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Until we next meet,
Brightest Blessings and joy in the journey, though imperfect, good enough
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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