EXPLORE - Day 4

Day 4
Today's prompt takes three elements - notes, quotations and photos - and combines them to offer some perspective on perfection.

Do you feel you're a perfectionist or in some way frustrated when things do not go exactly to plan? Or do manage a great balance with happiness at making the best decision a given situation? Do you have a favourite quotation about perfection that you would like to share with everyone?


Perfectionism - per·fec·tion·ism
1. Refusal to accept any standard short of perfection.

2. A doctrine holding that religious, moral, social, or political perfection is attainable, esp. the theory that human moral or spiritual perfection should be or has been attained

I gave up on perfectionism a long time ago.  My Mother had followed the adage of “If something is worth doing it is worth doing well” and tied herself up in knots trying to achieve this.  My Dad on the other hand had a much more laid back character and firmly believed that “near enough” was indeed “good enough” –  this must have been a source of some domestic disharmony during my childhood.  I have always tried to do my best and have strived throughout my life to do everything to the best of my ability while still taking into account everyday factors, like time and resources.  Sometimes I look at an effort of mine and think I could have done that better but I’ve learnt to let it go – Striving for perfectionism is easy, obtaining it never is.  I like this quote.

Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness.  We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways.  ~Samuel McChord Crothers

As for a photo ... This isn't perfect in the truest sense of the word.  The lighting is wrong, the focus could have been better, it was taken on film and I have had to scan it so the quality isn't even very good.  So why is it perfect to me?  This photo represents love in the purest form.  It is a moment captured in time - of my father gazing at my newborn daughter and her gazing back at him.  No sleepy baby this one. She was alert and knowing from her first moments, almost like she remembered being here before!   It is perfect to me because I lost my Dad only fourteen months after this photo was taken and this image has come to represent in my heart how very much he loved his granddaughter and ultimately how much he loved me.