Sometimes Good Enough Is Good Enough
I applaud Chris Garrett's post today, Forget About Perfection, Just Do It. If we wait to blog or write or publish until everything is perfect, we may well miss the opportunity to have anything ever written at all. Chris' guides include keeping momentum, the benefits of now versus later, striking while still being original, and reducing opportunity cost. They are all valuable.
Even if we want to be seen as an authority, which is a theme I am beginning to come back to again and again, then we still need to start someplace. If I did not begin writing about expertise last week, I would not have noticed the pattern I just noticed and now have a third reference to it in this post. Now I have something else to say and develop about it, as I have the beginning of some track record in this area (cf. Chris' momentum, benefits now, etc.).
A number of years ago, when I was working on a graduate degree in English and American Literature at Hunter College, one of my classmates and future professional colleagues, Karen Graham said a profound statement that I come back to again and again. While we were struggling to finish our theses, she said (perhaps borrowing from a faculty member), that sometimes good enough is good enough. Excellent point. Sometimes we have to write and get it done and out the door as there are other things in life that demand attention, time, and resources. I may want to write the perfect blog post or Great American Novel or most sublime philosophical point that will have friends and colleagues alike in profound awe for years to come, but if I waited until then, I may as well remain illiterate.
After all, perfection is a long time in coming.
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