We’d been beach combing for an hour. Now it was time to survey each other’s treasures.
We poured three glasses of wine and settled in our beach chairs to savor the sunset view, compare our finds, and share some easy conversation between old friends.
We spread our respective bounty across the sea grass mat. Our haul was small – each one of us had returned with a carefully chosen selection of perfect unbroken shells.
Just what one would expect from three over-achieving, results-oriented business women.
But we missed the point, didn’t we?
We overlooked all those perfect pieces of shells, not unlike our lives.
Is anyone’s life one perfect piece?
Aren’t our lives really a collection of pieces of perfect with lots of learning lessons tucked in-between?
Now when we gather sea treasures, our collections are much more eclectic: unusually-shaped and/or colored fragments, bits of sea glass, and broken segments of sand dollars.
Findings much more representative of the tossings and turnings of the ocean…and our lives.
What’s in your sea treasure collection?
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Good enough is good enough. Perfect will make you a big fat mess every time. ~Rebecca Wells
At its root, perfectionism isn’t really about a deep love of being meticulous. It’s about fear. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of disappointing others. Fear of failure. Fear of success. ~Michael Law
Perfectionism measures our beginner’s work against the finished work of masters. Perfectionism thrives on comparison and competition. It doesn’t know how to say, “Good try,” or “Job well done.” The critic does not believe in creative glee–or any glee at all, for that matter. No, perfectionism is a serious matter. ~Julia Cameron
Perfectionism is not a prerequisite for anything but pain. ~Danna Faulds
90 percent perfect and shared with the world always changes more lives than 100 percent perfect and stuck in your head. ~Jon Acuff
Image source before quote: morgueFile.com
So simple yet so true. Thanks for the reminder.
Thabo – thanks so much for your kind words! Sometimes it’s the simple things that are hardest to master.
Memories – the sea treasures of a life. Sometimes they just seem to wash up on the beach of today, and then roll back into the ocean of the past.
Bruce – your comment reads like a poem! Beautifully phrased.