GOOD ENOUGH

I was once talking to someone who said she was too much of a perfectionist. Well, I thought, I'll never have that problem - I mess up whatever I try to do, don't follow through, always disappoint myself - I don't try to do something perfectly because I know I never will.
     I knew there was a voice, a presence in my head that I came to think of as the Nazi with a whip. This voice said nothing I did was ever good enough.  You're not good enough, the voice said again and again, like a diabolical mantra.  It was a long time before I realized that was the voice of perfectionism, the demand I put on myself to meet some impossible standard, impossible so I was destined always to fail. Of course, there actually were things I messed up or did halfway but that wasn't the point.  No matter how well I did, it would never be enough.
     The English pediatrician and psychoanalyst, D.W. Winnicott, is known for his phrase, "the good enough mother."  A mother doesn't have to be perfect to give her child a true self, one that is alive, spontaneous and unafraid.  She just has to pay enough attention, be loving and encouraging enough and all the other things that help develop self-love in her child. She just has to be good enough.  I've made that a new and productive mantra - I just have to be good enough. That doesn't mean that I don't want to excel, to succeed, even to stand out.  It simply takes off the pressure for perfection, and that frees up more energy to actually make my best effort.
     And here's something else: as my demand that I be perfect slowly lessened its grip on me, my demand that you be perfect also fell away. As I developed compassion for my beleaguered self, I became more able to look out at the world, to see the struggles everyone else was dealing with. And in seeing it, I began to develop compassion for you and you and you...