That's it, I'm done. I'm turning the book in to the publisher today not because it's perfect but because even I will admit it's good enough. True, even after all the tweaks there remain a few cranky words that refuse to get into line, but I'm probably the only one who will regret the lack of grace or even notice. It's time to let it go. My editor said to me a few months back, "authors never stop rewriting a book, there just comes a day when they decide to abandon it." Today's that day for me.
The art of recognizing "good enough" makes life and products better. Too many functions, too many steps, too many options (and too many words) can make the consumer feel either stupid or overwhelmed. There are photo editing apps and kitchen gadgets that are, for me, too clever by half - the effort to learn them outweighs their usefulness. In writing curricula years ago, I had to find that tipping point - enough good ideas to make a teacher successful, but not so many as to make the choices hard. In writing business plans for my clients, I learned to make the arguments persuasive for the intended audience, not a litany of everything I knew to be true. And in this little book of mine, I aim to include only the words that tell the story, nothing more or less.
Businesses, of course, have long understood that the effort to perfect often puts a product out of the running either by price or by complexity - the irrefutable law of diminishing returns. Both profitability and elegance come from recognizing that glorious sweet spot - good enough - so difficult to define. But there is further grace that comes from such discernment, a lesson about life. Holding ourselves and each other accountable to be the best that we can be is not a pursuit of perfection, it is an acceptance (and cherishing) of human limitations. I am lucky to have finally learned this for myself and to have a partner who knows it, too. "Perfect," he often quotes Voltaire, "is the enemy of good" and he reminds me that "good enough" is sufficient grace to make us lovable and loved.
Tonight I'll celebrate not the "abandonment" of this book but the wondrous feat of finishing, the courage to put something out to the world with and without its imperfections. It has been a long, long time in coming, this optimistic moment when I declare it good enough.