WHEN IS GOOD…GOOD ENOUGH?

Today, instead of reinventing food, I thought of how many times in life do we try to reinvent ourselves. I wondered when is good…good enough? As a young lady, I dared to go into industries that were heavily populated with men. I excelled, not due to a lot of support from my male counterparts, but sheer determination. I watched them, I learned from them, I had to go toe to toe with them, I held my own, I succeeded. I said all of that to summarize, did that make me equal or superior? Not really, as I have learned a valuable lesson. We are not in competition with males or females; we are in competition with ourselves.

What do I mean, you ask? Allow me to dig deeper and I think it will become clearer. If I am a runner and I am timing myself. I am competing with the last timed run. If I am a swimmer, I am competing against my best time. It doesn’t matter how fast another swimmer or runner is at this moment, I can only measure if I am swimming or running faster than my last or best time. I am only as good as I can improve my individual efforts. Does that make sense now?

I love to cook but I also admire several fine chefs but I don’t measure my dishes by their shows. I measure it by my results, my successes, and yes, my failures. I may feel I surpassed their dishes or I may feel like they outdid me by a mile or a squash’s length. This brings me to a thought process to get us to a point When Good Is Good Enough:

• My Good is Good Enough!
• I have competed with my own personal achievements and sometimes I win and sometimes I have to rethink my strategy.
• I am a realist with an optimistic outlook. If I don’t succeed the first time, second or even third time but I try harder each time, I move closer to the finish line and I know eventually I will succeed.
• I look at life as I see it without so many expectations. Example: I am not a good singer but I love to sing but I realize that I am a limited talent (LOL) and sing when I am not in a public forum but the car is my stadium and I have put on many great performances (my rating, not anyone else’s).
• I love humor about my limitations and/or lack of talent in areas I have never been a super techie. This however, has not kept me from working with computer techs/programmers. I get what I want programmed and can solve problems and have good visuals. I have a great time telling those tech savvy folks to put it in my language and I will give them my perspective. See My Good is Good Enough. Their Good is Good Enough. Together Our Good is Good Enough.
• Knowing each person has excellent talents in certain fields is a big chunk of wisdom. Knowing each person has limitations and weak areas is universal wisdom and knowledge. Example: A Rocket Scientist has abilities and knowledge as well as strategic training but probably only a few has been successful in simple feats of life as cooking or changing a light bulb. Give me two remotes to work between them and I show you how irritating that is to me. However, knowing that I have to sometimes do this task, I have learned how to do it. So, by focusing on things I am not comfortable with, My Good is Good Enough.
• Accepting all of me, good and bad, weak and strong, intensive and scattered thought patterns, organized and out of order thoughts, and kind and even blunt speech are facets of me. My Good is Good Enough.
• Deciding when and where I can develop even better ideas, practices, habits, and actions is healthy when it comes from within and not because I am measuring myself against someone else. Being All I Can Be But Choosing to Be More is Good and Good is Good Enough.

I hope you see that God creates us the way we are for a reason. It may be that we are given handicaps, education opportunities or not, wealth or poverty, calm and soothing personality or a high spirited one, spiritual excellence or a work in progress, and on and on. Each one of us should realize if we do not feel we have to compete or challenge another one’s worth, we are rich within ourselves. Our Good is Good Enough. Thanks for allowing me to share my thoughts with you. Your own comments of personal growth are welcomed.

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