I’m enjoying my newly and consciously chosen path: things don’t need to be perfect. Not that I ever really was a perfectionist. But especially when it comes to consumer purchases, I’m much less a perfectionist than I ever was. Here are a couple cases in point.
The rear (electric) window of our ten year old car no longer goes up and down. My immediate thought was to have it fixed. I got an estimate: $270. Gad. My wife and I decided that we can do without that window going up and down (even though my daughters (who sit in the back) would prefer that it work. $270 is a lot of allowance money. I asked the repair guy how much it would cost to make the window permanently stay up (because it kept sliding down). He said that he could do it for $100. I turned down that offer, went home and glued it shut. Far from perfect, though quite satisfactory.
A friend visited today. The lock on her car’s passenger-side door was broken. She said: “Passengers can get into the car on the other side.” She added that not fixing minor things is a big time saver. Why make appointments and burn hours fixing something that isn’t really a priority?
These car stories won’t resonate for may people. I’ve known dozens of people who freak out if there is even a single little scratch on their car. Nor would they ever try to fix it themselves. They will run it to the dealer, especially if someone else was at fault. A man accidentally collided with our other car 6 months ago. I suggested that I find a body shop that could bang it into shape, but said that I didn’t want it to be “like new.” After all, the car is 8 years old. I found a shop that straightened out the bends and sprayed over the scrapes for $400, instead of getting a “like new” job that would have cost $1,500. It’s good enough for me.
There are days when I intend to get x number of things done. I’ve found that my life goes much more smoothly if I let some of those things drop off the list, unaccomplished. Imperfect execution of my list, but a much more enjoyable day.
Here’s something probably a bit too personal. I jammed a toe playing racquetball about a year ago and one of my big toenails fell off. Instead of growing back pretty, it’s all mangled looking (it’s not nearly as ugly as most of these [1] ) A doctor recently said that the ugliness was caused by fungus (this is a common condition—no, really!), and said that I could purchase a prescription medication that was harsh on the liver for 90 straight days to get rid of it. I turned it down—I’ll cope OK with my one mangled looking toe nail. Maybe it will grow back prettier someday, or maybe not. I really don’t care.
When my daughters mention that a banana has a brown spot, I grab it from them and eat it. Some ink leaked onto one of my shirts last year. It’s now my inky shirt and I wear it regularly—I’m proud of it. Our front yard doesn’t look nearly as nice as the yards of neighbors who hire lawn services. When I’m traveling on the business credit card, I get $80 hotel rooms, even though no one would say anything if I spent 2 or 3 times that much for a “nicer” room. There is some chipping paint in the living room of my house. It’s been there for fifteen years. When I need to buy a new pair of shoes, it embarrasses me that they look too new.
When I have visitors, I’m sure that I have much less than perfect etiquette (this makes my wife cringe). Witness three guests last week who were served frozen pizza and glasses of water. Instead, I try to focus on spending time with people—having quality conversations. And I do like to write carefully—I fret about things quite a bit before publishing them. And I do try to be a commendable father to my daughters. And I work really hard to cover all the bases for my clients at work. There are many things that truly are important enough to do very well.
So, yes, some things DO matter to me. But many things don’t matter, and that’s often the way I like it. It’s satisficingly [2]liberating. I choose imperfection because I don’t want to spend my limited amounts of fungible money and time [3] dealing with things that don’t really matter.
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