Perfect Effort

It is not perfection we should seek - but perfect effort. 

Whew, that’s a major relief. All along I have operated under the understanding that positive results gained from productivity were the things that really mattered. Further, I think everyone at one point or another brokers a deal with themselves to consolidate the scope of this paradoxically sharp logical razor. Examples can be found literally in every field of endeavor. With a few that I have personal experience with leading this ignoble charge.

I realize deeply and sincerely that despite ‘my best effort’ I still manage to win my age group and stand on the podium with bowed head to allow the event director to place a cheap mass-produced symbol of victory around my neck. Usually this ritual has a background sound-track that includes scattered distracted applause and babies crying. Since I have acting experience (sometimes even listed on my resume) the challenge to remain humble and appreciative when feeling like a failure and a fraud tests my skills in this supporting role. Begging the question: Is it better therefore to give ‘perfect effort’ and finish off the podium, buried in middle-of-the-pack anonymity, or to gratefully accept the adulation of what few remaining peers that show up when they could have been golfing or gambling, or to just win, say thank you and go find a beer? 

Can it come down to our varying definitions of ‘best effort’, winning, victory, and perhaps most important - the fun factor that fills our souls with meaning and value? These are tough to gauge and ever tougher to properly evaluate and accept. 

Another example (the last one today - but you should consider some of your own), is the classic DNA hand me down scenario. An incredibly gifted athlete, with X’s and Y’s from prized stock, has all the tools, he can (using baseball terminology) hit, hit for power, run, throw and field. Collectively these are known as the five tools, and professional scouts make decent livings rating them in, mostly, high-school kids. I have personally seen the skill difference, obvious when understood, in the progeny from parents whose raw talents proceeded them. DNA is a great place to start. BUT. Sometimes those granted this generous gifting lack the one element that binds them together to allow success (assuming they choose sports and not medicine or law), that element being the bright burning fire of desire. They simply do not have the mental, emotional or fearless capacity to endure the enviable failures and setbacks that occur across this terse testing ground. They give up, quit, do drugs. 

I will readily admit that the pressure to succeed can be greater on these poor kids than that on the shoulders of the scrappy, not quite so gifted bulldog of an athlete, but our query du jour remains: As coach, manager, teammate or classmate, which would you prefer to assign the watching of your back? 

I find this a fascinating subject. It is applicable every day as we run, ride, stumble and crawl towards whatever our hearts, minds, souls (or employers) have established as ‘the goal.’ If we are wise enough, aware enough, honest enough and strong enough to see that it is our choices at every turn that shape the bigger picture of our eventual results, we can put this to practice. IT IS, BY FAR, WAY, WAY BETTER TO PRACTICE PERFECTLY THAN TO SEEK PERFECTION.

Practice that and I predict a cleaner, more appropriate and productive personal definition of perfection. With this I also predict that you will find that presence, your ability to stay in the present moment, is far more satisfying that productivity. Begging one final question today:

Can our effort be, truly, perfect? Or, in more utilitarian terms, how can we improve our levels of effort? That would be more pragmatic. 

Tomorrow I will offer a few suggestions. You should too.