perfection

perfection has it's price. the saying is used over and over again. what does it really mean, though? i'm not perfect, so i am not paying any price. my friends and family aren't perfect, so i can't ask them. stella artois claims to be perfect, so you literally have to pay a price for it. but i don't like stella, so i have never paid for perfection. that is, until last sunday.

it was like any other sunday during the fall. i was wearing slippers, eating spinach artichoke dip, and gazing intently at the tv screen. but unlike other sunday's, i was feeling the price. two season's ago, the patriots went undefeated in the regular season, only to loose the superbowl in heartbreaking fashion to the new york giants. they were perfect in the regular season, and almost perfect in the post season. the only way to improve was to maintain the perfect regular season and improve to win the superbowl.

i was finally feeling the price of perfection. instead of looking for the best in a situation, i was only focusing on the worst. the price of perfection comes from comparison to perfection. it means never appreciating the good, and always highlighting the bad. as a person, there is always room for improvement. in perfection, there is only room for decline. a one loss season is a disappointment when comparing to the previous previous season.

the only way to stop paying the price of perfection is to stop comparing to previous success. instead, success and failures should be measured against potential. is it reasonable to expect this patriots team this year to go undefeated? no. therefore, one loss is not a disappointment. one mistake is not a failure. it is a learning experience.

clichés

one of the biggest pieces of advice i have heard to survive the working world, and the world in general, is "don't sweat the small stuff." often, it is amended with "...and it is all small stuff." i understand this sentiment. it is so easy to get caught up in our petty problems and spend too much time worrying about things that are of little to no importance in the grand scheme of things. in practice, though, i prefer to work the opposite way for two reasons.

if i choose to skip caring about small events, i would miss the bits of humor that make work, and life, entertaining. when the office mail guy sent an email out asking if anyone had seen his missing hammer, i could have deleted it without a second thought. instead, i spent a few minutes day dreaming about which co-worker was most likely to steal the hammer--any why. i could have brushed off one co-worker's interest in the timed deodorizer that is in our bathroom instead of spending a few minutes google-ing the TC 9000. i would have missed that this handy device is called the "microburst" and cost upwards of $100. these are not really important events that, at first glance, would be worth my time. but those bits of irreverence are what add up to an enjoyable day.

secondly, if i choose to skip the small events that annoy me, i miss out on any opportunity to grow as a person. it is easiest to see my own personal growth over long periods of time, but the only way that growth is achieved is through small, seemingly unimportant decisions amassed over a period of time. i have an idea of the person that i would like to be. that person is not just going to arrive in a few years. everyday, i have to choose to be that person. when someone sends me a passive aggressive (or just plain aggressive) email, instead of returning the passive aggression, "don't sweat the small stuff" wisdom tells me to blow it off, send a bland response, and move on. instead, wouldn't it be better to take a moment to recognize what the email sender is doing, and choose an appropriate response based on what the person i would like to be would say?

so when it comes down to it, while it's true that it is all small stuff, it turns out that the small stuff is exactly what i want to sweat.

headphones

riding the bus home today, headphones securely in my ears, i zoned out. i thought about the work i left undone, the dinner i was going to make, and the baseball game i planned to watch. it wasn't until halfway through the ride that i realized i couldn't actually hear the music that was playing.

i looked around at the others on the bus wearing headphones, each zoned out in their own way, and wondered if they were using the headphones for their intended use -- listening to music -- or using them for the same reason i was -- to create an illusion of solitude.

living in a city, you are never alone. even when i am at home in my apartment by myself, there are the people on the street outside, or people in the apartment next door watching t.v. everything in a city is a communal experience. when i am walking down the street, riding the bus, or reading a book in the park, distractions are constantly around. i people watch, i eaves drop, i look around for people that i will need to avoid.

wearing headphones is the excuse to stop. it started simply enough. using headphones meant i was listening to music, and therefore it was something to do other than people watch, eaves drop, or be on the look out. somewhere along the way, it became more about avoiding typical city street distractions than about listening to the music.

the headphones do mean that i am tuning out the rest of the world. but it is not to listen to music. if you see me walking down the street, headphones on, eyes glazed over, don't ask me what i am listening to. ask me what i am thinking about. i may say dinner, or baseball, or food. but i may say happiness, or compassion, or minneapolis.