On being good enough and no better
Around the time I turned fourteen, I realized something important about myself. With a medium level of effort, I could be good enough at many things. And I was too lazy to put in the level of effort required to be any better. Without studying very hard, I could get an A, and I saw no value in chasing the A+. Without a lot of physical discipline, I could enjoy several sports—table-tennis, ice-skating, archery, badminton, swimming—but did not care to be great at any of them. My parents spent years lamenting my wasted potential, but I tuned them out. My happiness was not worth the price of greatness.
In the last two weeks, I’ve been confronted twice, once at work and once in the writing realm, on how I managed to know what was ‘good enough.’ In the first case, the person struggled with avoiding burnout; in the second, with knowing when a novel draft was ready to be sent to an agent or publisher. In both cases, the people in question had already put in far more effort than I would have even considered. To the first one, when I said, “Please take next week off. You’re far too valuable to put your health at risk,” she started crying. It caught me off-guard, that nobody had told her that she was enough, she’d done enough, and in fact could stand to do less.
Someone once asked me how I can write novels while I have a full-time job. How I juggle all the things I love. The answer is to only do them as long as they are actually enjoyable. I don’t beat myself up about the weeks when I’m so engrossed in a work problem that I can’t write at all, and I don’t feel guilty about taking long vacations to write either. Does this mean it takes me longer to write my novel than someone who’s dedicated to it full-time? Hard to say. What does it mean to dedicate oneself to just one thing at the expense of everything else? I’ve never done it. I couldn’t even pick just one major in college.
I wouldn’t say my stance is enlightened. We all see patterns of behavior to emulate or avoid, and I’m no exception. I grew up around perfectionists. People who dedicated themselves to being great, and rose quickly to the peak of our little hill, only to crumble when they realized that there were higher hills beyond that. Maybe I just find it motivating to believe that if I only tried I could climb higher, rather than that I gave it my all and knew I could not. Maybe I’m more willing to test the waters with something imperfect, and increase my effort slowly until I achieve a reasonable goal, rather than striving for an unattainable one and never feeling good enough. We all have our demons.
So when is your novel or your work product ready for someone else’s eyes? That’s actually got nothing to do with your skill as a writer, and everything to do with your courage and adaptability. The fastest path to good enough involves sharing early work for feedback, and finding the people who will see the spirit of the thing without being bogged down by the details of the current draft. Who see what something could become, not just what it is.
I see you, little shoot. You’ll break through that rock one day.