"Near Enough is Good Enough".

Most big revelations I have stem from conversations with my mother that leave me thinking. Most recently, a 'big revelation' that has been buzzing around in my mind is the concept that -as mum puts it,  'near enough is good enough'.

Being someone who is always looking towards self adjustment and improvement, I have lately been focussed on changing the way I act as a 'perfectionist' which I feel over the years has allowed for a lot of reward and success but as of late, is causing more grief than good. I have always been that person in a group assignment who takes on double the workload just so that the majority of it can be the way I want it and often think of how much better it could have been if I had just done it alone. Self confidence is great, but to a point. When you are always thinking that your skill set and ideas are better than all those around you, you can encounter serious problems. I could be getting this completely wrong but in my mind I was the person that people used to do an internal fist pump over getting paired with, not because I was a great person providing great company, but because I was that girl who would do most of the work and hardly delegate anything. Thankfully, this trait gave way to laziness in the later years of high school but many of my fussy ways have remained and are wrecking havoc on my personal life. Enough is enough!! 

Let me paint you a picture:
Recently on a trip interstate with friends for several days, the girls (me included) decided to delegate the task of cooking to the boys as we had taken time out to do the meal planning and shopping. Sound fair enough? I agree. However, it soon started to become apparent that delegation was easier said than done. 
Instead of retreating to the rooms and having a drink and a laugh, I and a few of the girls remained standing around the communal kitchen. I found myself literally hovering over one of the poor boys shoulders wincing as I watched him cut a carrot in a way that was wildly different to how I would have gone about it. This escalated to the point where he actually stepped away and asked if I wanted to take over -which I obviously did. 

After a while of cutting away happily and getting the preparation complete in record time I looked around to see that all the boys had left and it was just a few of us girls left in the kitchen.  At first I let out a sigh and made a laughing comment to my friend about the fact that it was supposed to be the boys doing the cooking but "of course we get stuck with it"... then I suddenly took a step back realised that I had forced myself to be stuck with it! Of course the boys weren't going to complain about us taking over the dinner making because frankly, who would. They had lucked out. And we had no reason to whine about having to do all the work because in an effort to get it done the way we wanted, we had completely taken over. 

This transfers to my job as a nanny in the way I often 'help' the kids zip up their jackets because really they are just taking too long or open their muesli bars before I give it to them because I know it'll be a five minute ordeal if they did it themselves.  I like to think I am being helpful and making life easier for them but really I am just creating more work for myself and inhibiting their opportunity to learn how to do those little things themselves. Sometimes it is beneficial to be lazy and let people do things for themselves.

Growing up, my mum and dad let me make my lunches to my liking and have the kitchen to myself in my 'cooking phase' and redecorate my room every second weekend because I felt like something new. Whether this was because they wanted to let me learn for myself or really just couldn't be bothered helping really didn't matter too much because in the end, endless burnt baking sessions later, I can essentially do everything for myself or at least have the confidence to give it a go. 

So, in light of this revelation, I am setting myself a goal to stop myself in situations and think "Near Enough is Good Enough". To stop trying to get everything right and stop condescendingly fixing things that others have done and stop telling people how to do it my way. Not only will this make me less of a pain to be around but spending less time fussing over things will allow me to be much more efficient and get on with things. In situations like the pasta making fiasco, I have to remain in the rooms while the cooking is going on, not go check to see 'how it's going', pour myself a drink and eat the pasta smiling while chucking a complement to those who had made it- even if the carrot pieces are the size of hockey pucks and they haven't cooked them right through and the pasta isn't 'al dente' and they haven't added enough salt and there is not enough onion and it really could have used some meat and this is not the way nonna does it...

- B