“Don’t Let Perfect Be The Enemy of Good”

Voltaire, the Italian philosopher, is most commonly credited with the quote above. Though many believe the quote, or some version on the theme, pre-dates Voltaire, the quote had legs and has withstood the test of time.

Have we?

Over the years, when I have spoken at brain injury conferences, I have often said something to the effect of, “Don’t let the injury continue to injure.” Most of that targets the many of us who just can’t stop comparing our post-injury, lousy lives with the pre-injury ones we dreamily recall as perfect and preferred and ideal.

We waste a lot of time, unwilling to have anything less than that day before we were hurt. We allow “perfect” to become the enemy of all the potential good.

It’s a lonely conundrum, this. No matter how many plead with us to let the past go and get busy in the present…no matter how many abandon us in our place with no budging, leaving us as they continue on…no matter how long and how far we drift from that last day of our old normal….

We dig in our heels. We are willing to keep waiting. We continue to scour the Internet for a miracle pill, a rumored specialist who cures brain injuries, that next book with the secret revealed, the ancient Far Eastern Remedy…

Maybe the quote should also be, “Don’t let yesterday be the enemy of today.” I’m sure someone far smarter than me has quoted some version of that in prettier ways.

Over these many years, I’ve learned that waiting stubbornly only wastes those days. Burns them. Gifts them, too, to our injuries like sad forfeits of what might have been.

What do we do when “perfect” is gone?

There are two things I did to overcome my early waiting. One: I admitted that not everything about my former life was perfect and two: I left the door open in case “complete healing” decided to find me down the line. That was the bargain I made with my past.

And then I got busy standing down and stepping back, refusing to be the enemy of good.

It’s amazing how much good you gather when you seek it, invite it, create it…

I believe we find what we are looking for, in most cases. If you want to be angry, you can find angry people to be angry with. You can find things to get angry about all over the news. You can point out this and yell about that and it’s all probably valid, at least in part.

But, by the same token, if you want to be happy, you can find happy people to be happy with. You can find things to be happy about all over the news. You can point out happy this and shine light upon happy that.

We all have to make our own choices about whether we want to be angry or not, happy or not, peaceful or not, successful or not. We each get this one life to decide for ourselves.

If we decide to dig in our heels and stay where our “perfect” lives died, we will stay there alone. No one will stay with us there. They have lives that move forward.

But if we decide that a good present and future is worthwhile, even at the trade of a “perfect” past we cannot reclaim, then we are recovering from this injury. Like a person who finally chooses to date again after a bitter divorce…like the person who finally updates his/her resume and starts looking for another job after a painful firing…Like the person who chooses to embrace prosthetic limbs or breasts or a wig after a tough bout with an angry illness….

Once we realize that an enjoyable good will always be better than a perfect that is out of our reach, then we start joining again. We catch up to those people who kept moving forward when we chose not to. We stop grieving at the grave of one we can never have back and we start fine-tuning the one we are lucky enough to be.

Promise yourself to insert verbs into your life. Descriptors of movement like joining, trying, engaging…Even failing and struggling and bounce-backing. Ha.

I’m not a money-rich woman but I’d bet my last dollar that someone who loves you and needs you is waiting for you to join them for a dance. The dance of life. The dance of the living.

You know how I cheer for you!!!