Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

Photo Credit: Lisa Franklin

What does this beautiful image have to do with one of my favorite “teaching points” in my Well-Being Challah Workshop? It all comes back to Lisa. Across the country, in a different lifetime ago it seems – but only two and a half years ago – I met Lisa. We made challah together. A big take-away from my talk at the event for her has been one of my all-time favorite mantras: “Perfect is the enemy of the good.”

Every week, standing at the kitchen counter, making challah with the same six ingredients and a bowl, we are reminded of this mantra. No matter that it is the same six ingredients; no matter that it may be our first time making challah or our tenth time, it all comes down to remembering that perfect is the enemy of the good. Why? Because each week the experience is different precisely because it’s about the process and not the product. Worrying about making “perfect” challah gets in the way of being present in the moment.

Lisa absorbed this lesson into her life.

The image here comes from her Instagram, and every time I see it, it reminds me of her, and her “perfect is the enemy of the good” journey.

She not only absorbed this lesson but recently shared with me that she now shares it others, like her daughter, a young adult navigating the post-school world. And when her friends forget, she reminds them too of the importance of this lesson.