Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
A truly excellent phrase, one that I’m finding out has broad utility.
In a stunning plot twist, I believe I first heard this in the corporate world. There is no domain on this earth more attuned to hollow phrases than the corporate world. There is something big to say about weasly corporate terminology – but this is not the piece for it. Instead, let’s note the irony of hearing this good phrase in a business (specifically, software development) context and move on.
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A conversation:
“So you don’t eat beef nearly all the time but you do sometimes and you still eat pork and chicken as much as before, if not more?” Yes. “Well, it’s hard to see what you’re achieving there”.
At this point I lunge forward and press my mouth lushly against the side of this imaginary person’s head, my humid breath condensing on the inside of their outer ear structures. My contorted face reflected in a line of tiny moisture beads. I exhale the phrase, suffusing them in a warm fug. Listen here you little shit. I’m not letting perfect be the enemy of good.
I’ve more or less entirely stop eating beef, the most polluting of all the meats, without too much willpower, taking a big chunk out of my CO2 emissions. (I also don’t eat tuna, or indeed much fish at all, because of overfishing). But I don’t know if I’d find eliminating chicken and pork sustainable. I really love chorizo, literally the best foodstuff, it turns you into a culinary god. If I quit pork and chicken my position on the no-meat bandwagon would feel precarious. Maybe I’ll get there eventually. But I’m happy with my current good-but-not-perfect arrangement and don’t give myself a hard time for it.
(I’ve also recently been introduced to “Quorn Chunks”, which do a very passable imitation of chicken. This could be the next step.)
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Let’s stick with food for a bit.
A common thing that happens to people who are new to working out is that, alongside tough exercise plans, they set themselves an extremely stringent dietary regimen. Counting calories and macros, meal prepping, no sugar or processed foods – an extremely difficult diet to follow, basically. Then the siren call of a social life overwhelms their willpower and they find they’re out on the pints, smashing back a kebab, and ordering in a McDonald’s the next day because they need comforting from the throbbing headache. And they go, oh fuck it, this whole weekend’s a write-off, and the next week the diet is more difficult to stick to and before they’ve finished even one bag of protein they’re back in their old habits. A slope so slippery they should put it in Thorpe Park.
The Uber Eats man arrives at the door with a big bag of fatty, juicy, fried goodies. He extends his hand and you reach out a trembling and hungover fingers to take the bag from him. But his grip around it tightens. You tug but you’re too weak. A vein in his temple throbs and his eyes blaze with anger. He won’t let go. You’re scared. The bag abruptly rips and your food is flung in the air and scatters all over the floor.
Your chips…they say something. My god--
DON’T LET GOOD BE THE ENEMY OF PERFECT
Creepy, but—hang on, that’s weird, shouldn’t “perfect” and “good” be swapped? That makes no fuckin’ sense at all! The Uber man awkwardly rearranges the chips but by the time he’s finished the tension has dissipated and the chips don’t look appetising.
I guess my point is, as someone that goes to the gym a lot and has finished more than my share of bags of protein, I’ve learnt not to beat myself up if I have an under- or over-eating weekend. A few days of bad eating is nothing, just a few thousand extra calories. It won’t make a difference. I just get back to it.
-
When Julia Hartley-Brewer or some other awful person bloviates some nonsense on Twitter about Extinction Rebellion protesters having leather shoes, I just think, yep, that’s someone who hasn’t learnt not to let perfect be the enemy of good. Does an imperfection in an Extinction Rebellion-er’s environmental credentials weaken the movement? No. They are trying, and they are good. The same goes for any left-winger with money (or even without) who engages in capitalism. It's just a fake argument.
Maybe that’s Julia’s whole existence, someone that tried to be perfect, failed, then let it all go to shit.
-
And lastly, the only reason this blog is still going all these years later, with posts having reduced to -- at best -- two a year, is because if I don't feel like writing it doesn't faze me, knowing that it'll still be here when I do. It's not perfect; in fact, it's hard to say it's even good. But it's better than nothing at all.
A truly excellent phrase, one that I’m finding out has broad utility.
In a stunning plot twist, I believe I first heard this in the corporate world. There is no domain on this earth more attuned to hollow phrases than the corporate world. There is something big to say about weasly corporate terminology – but this is not the piece for it. Instead, let’s note the irony of hearing this good phrase in a business (specifically, software development) context and move on.
-
A conversation:
“So you don’t eat beef nearly all the time but you do sometimes and you still eat pork and chicken as much as before, if not more?” Yes. “Well, it’s hard to see what you’re achieving there”.
At this point I lunge forward and press my mouth lushly against the side of this imaginary person’s head, my humid breath condensing on the inside of their outer ear structures. My contorted face reflected in a line of tiny moisture beads. I exhale the phrase, suffusing them in a warm fug. Listen here you little shit. I’m not letting perfect be the enemy of good.
I’ve more or less entirely stop eating beef, the most polluting of all the meats, without too much willpower, taking a big chunk out of my CO2 emissions. (I also don’t eat tuna, or indeed much fish at all, because of overfishing). But I don’t know if I’d find eliminating chicken and pork sustainable. I really love chorizo, literally the best foodstuff, it turns you into a culinary god. If I quit pork and chicken my position on the no-meat bandwagon would feel precarious. Maybe I’ll get there eventually. But I’m happy with my current good-but-not-perfect arrangement and don’t give myself a hard time for it.
(I’ve also recently been introduced to “Quorn Chunks”, which do a very passable imitation of chicken. This could be the next step.)
-
Let’s stick with food for a bit.
A common thing that happens to people who are new to working out is that, alongside tough exercise plans, they set themselves an extremely stringent dietary regimen. Counting calories and macros, meal prepping, no sugar or processed foods – an extremely difficult diet to follow, basically. Then the siren call of a social life overwhelms their willpower and they find they’re out on the pints, smashing back a kebab, and ordering in a McDonald’s the next day because they need comforting from the throbbing headache. And they go, oh fuck it, this whole weekend’s a write-off, and the next week the diet is more difficult to stick to and before they’ve finished even one bag of protein they’re back in their old habits. A slope so slippery they should put it in Thorpe Park.
The Uber Eats man arrives at the door with a big bag of fatty, juicy, fried goodies. He extends his hand and you reach out a trembling and hungover fingers to take the bag from him. But his grip around it tightens. You tug but you’re too weak. A vein in his temple throbs and his eyes blaze with anger. He won’t let go. You’re scared. The bag abruptly rips and your food is flung in the air and scatters all over the floor.
Your chips…they say something. My god--
DON’T LET GOOD BE THE ENEMY OF PERFECT
Creepy, but—hang on, that’s weird, shouldn’t “perfect” and “good” be swapped? That makes no fuckin’ sense at all! The Uber man awkwardly rearranges the chips but by the time he’s finished the tension has dissipated and the chips don’t look appetising.
I guess my point is, as someone that goes to the gym a lot and has finished more than my share of bags of protein, I’ve learnt not to beat myself up if I have an under- or over-eating weekend. A few days of bad eating is nothing, just a few thousand extra calories. It won’t make a difference. I just get back to it.
-
When Julia Hartley-Brewer or some other awful person bloviates some nonsense on Twitter about Extinction Rebellion protesters having leather shoes, I just think, yep, that’s someone who hasn’t learnt not to let perfect be the enemy of good. Does an imperfection in an Extinction Rebellion-er’s environmental credentials weaken the movement? No. They are trying, and they are good. The same goes for any left-winger with money (or even without) who engages in capitalism. It's just a fake argument.
Maybe that’s Julia’s whole existence, someone that tried to be perfect, failed, then let it all go to shit.
-
And lastly, the only reason this blog is still going all these years later, with posts having reduced to -- at best -- two a year, is because if I don't feel like writing it doesn't faze me, knowing that it'll still be here when I do. It's not perfect; in fact, it's hard to say it's even good. But it's better than nothing at all.
