Monday, January 29, 2024

Acceptable Over Optimal

As a perfectionist, I am all about optimizing. I really do want the best all of the time, or at least most of the time. I continue to realize, though, that this is not possible, not unless I really drop a lot of things, and even then, I cannot achieve perfection.

I have started to think, therefore, about what is acceptable, tolerable even. What is good enough? Can I learn to be satisfied with just okay? And if not, what needs to go so I can improve? For example, do I want dinner on the dot at the time I want? Or do I want the kitchen tidied and cleaned so that I can focus on making dinner and enjoying eating it? Do I want all homemade food and lots of time in the kitchen? Or do I want okay nutrition which includes some processed foods and time to do things other than cook? If optimal sleep is not available, what is acceptable? What will get me through?

I am not for giving everything the short end of the stick. There is some wisdom in the phrase my mom told me in college: "You have to cheat something." I'm not suggesting that I want to be dishonest. I'm just continuing to realize that there are only so many resources to go around (time, money, etc.). If I have many things I want to do, I have to lower the resources needed for each one. If I have a few things I want to invest in more, I have to let other things go. It's a balancing game, or maybe not even a balancing game. It's a choices game.

I definitely don't have all this figured out. I'm just trying to figure out what I can accept, what I can tolerate without it causing me so much distress. Optimal ain't happening much over here, so I've got to figure out how to accept and appreciate what is!

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