If It Ain't Broke...

Last month I went to one of my favorite fish camps for a week of very serious fishing. At the end of 28 hours in the boat, my partner, Yvon, and I had caught 447 Northern Pike and Walleye. That's one fish in the boat every 3.75 minutes. Amazing!

The number of fish we caught is, indeed, amazing. Even more extraordinary is that we did it with only two lures. My lure was a red spoon with black dots. Now it is missing a lot of paint. Yvon's lure was a gold spoon with red tips. There's no paint left on his lure and one hook is missing.

One might suggest that both those lures are now broken. And we could repair them until they are perfect and flawless. Today, however, I prefer to think of those two lures as not broken but, instead, excellent. So we're not "fixing" them. They've been retired to the fireplace mantel and we're just being with them in another way. They inspire conversation and whimsical memories. They make me smile. They make me laugh. They make me dance. I'll take those two damaged and excellent lures over a pair of perfect lures any day. To me, they're still beautiful. In fact, I doubt anything we find truly beautiful is perfect.

How about you? Are you striving for perfection or enjoying the excellence in your life?

"Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes. Find the cause of your problems and eliminate t. Don't try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human." ~Anthony Robbins

"If the world was perfect, it wouldn't be." ~Yogi Berra

Success

While I was looking for some inspiration from anything but this weather, I noticed my friend Rasheed had a birthday on April 8th. I remembered that I had edited some of my previous writings into an article for a book he was compiling on the topic of success. Happy Birthday, Rasheed!

Too often, we see success as an outcome. When we have amassed a certain number of toys, dollars, possession, then we are successful. But true success is not our possessions. Our success comes from our choice of rhythm. As we learn our own rhythm or cadence, changing it in a heartbeat when we feel the urge, we learn to listen and flow. When a creek encounters resistance, like a rock, a downed tree or a beaver dam, it does not go through that block. The creek changes its rhythm and stays in flow by going around, over and underneath the resistance. What is my suggestion for true success? Go stand in a creek and …

…Surrender:
Surrender control rather than seize it. Let go and trust. A life full of preparation for situations that are yet only imagined is not much of a life at all.

…Step into the Unknown:
Step fully, freely and without hesitation into the unknown. To become comfortable with the unknown is to experience freedom. To make the leap without all the answers, to step into the darkness without expectation of what is to come, to embrace the unknown as a place in which we wallow, rest and soak up our inner essence is incredibly powerful. The unknown is where your imagination can take hold. And it's imagination that transcends time and place.

…Focus on Enough:
When enough truly is enough, what we desire moves in and out of our life naturally. There is enough for us; there is enough for everyone. We have the ability and freedom to nurture others and ourselves. When we appreciate the enough-ness in our lives, our enough-ness appreciates.

…Be a Child in Nature:
Nature is authentic. It is exactly what it seems to be. Be a grownup if you must. But be a grownup who knows the secrets children know. Go to the wilds.

…Be Without Goals:
If you're saying, “I’ll be dancing lightly when I achieve my goals,” you're missing out. Dance lightly now. Step into your delight, happiness, joy and let success find you. Life is a process, not a product. No stop along the way or altered path is a mistake. Turn your back on the product, the outcome, the goal, and pay attention to enjoying the process, the hunt. Then the elusive will present itself. It always does. It has no choice.

…Hone Your Skills at Being Lost:
The gift we receive from being lost is new, unexpected and random things like unforeseen circumstances, interesting people and odd surroundings. It stimulates us. If we can let go of being threatened simply because we are lost, we learn to not waste our energy panicking about the direction we should take.

…Take on Opportunities Rather than Musing about Possibilities:
Yes, we can remain on the creek bank and discuss and wonder at the possibilities. But the creek is going somewhere. There are trees, streams, rocks and trails on the other side waiting to be explored. There are fish to be caught! There are people along the creek who have stories to tell about their own opportunities taken. Find the opportunity in the possibility and take it.

…Relish Imperfection:
When we let go of perfection, allow ourselves to do things imperfectly, we come to see how perfect we are, just the way we are. It's a subtle difference but it's true. Our lives can be more perfect when we let go of perfection.

…Be Freely Vulnerable:
What excites me is the freedom inherent in every new beginning. What scares me is that I am vulnerable. Yet I can't separate the two. If I'm to be free, I'm to be vulnerable. I become energized by the possibility of freedom that a new beginning brings. When I seek to lessen the inherent vulnerability in a new beginning by trying to cover all the contingencies, I actually diminish my freedom and the new beginning becomes too small for me. Our lives and work must envelop vulnerable freedom or they come down to nothing more than a means of providing.

…Become Intuitive:
Trust your intuition and your dreams. See the unlikely. Think the unthinkable. Imagine the improbable. Life's biggest opportunities are often hidden to all but our intuition.

What's Perfect About Imperfection

Let me try something new but please, please, please, let me do it right and well the first time. If we always do things well, always do things right, and people know us as someone who always gets it right, then we've set ourselves up. It's costing us. As my friend John Bailey pointed out just yesterday, it gets lonesome and tiresome being the one in control, waiting for the world to catch up.

Looking at things from the bottom up isn't all bad. When I was a child learning to downhill ski, the first thing my instructor taught me to do was fall down. We spent a whole day falling. I fell while standing still, I fell while moving forward, I fell with my skis on, my skis off, going downhill and even while side-stepping uphill. It got pretty silly. But somehow, through the process of learning to fall, I learned to ski. Interesting. I don't remember much about the skiing lesson, just the falling lesson. We would be in the process of attempting something new on skis, the instructor would command “fall!” and down we went. What a wonderful way to learn. Nobody got to be perfect.

Many years later when I took a solo white water canoeing class, guess what we learned first? You got it! How to dump the canoe. First we dumped in still water and then the instructor took us to the river and we learned to get ourselves in every possible bad situation that river had to offer and fall out of the canoe. Everyone came to the class pretty nervous about our ability to perform and everyone left the class soggy and tired but extremely giddy.

Why do we feel we have to be good at something to try it, that we have to succeed at something in order to enjoy it, that we have to do something right before we feel accomplished? Striving for perfection can create frustration and disappointment. But doing something imperfectly leads to new insights and a new way of looking at things.

Here's what perfection is costing us:

1. Spontaneity. Perfection is a way to be in control. But control limits spontaneity.
2. Process. When we focus on perfection, we're in the game for the product, for mastery, not the process. We compare ourselves against people who are further along in the process and can't enjoy our own progress.
3. Completion. The higher the goals of perfection, the lower the hopes of completion.
4. Mystery. There is mystery all around us and enjoying the mystery evolves us. Perfection doesn't honor the mystery. 
5. Authenticity. Striving for perfection does not allow us to be authentic.

When we let go of perfection, allow ourselves to do things imperfectly, we come to see how perfect we are, just the way we are. It's a subtle difference but it's true. Our lives can be more perfect when we let go of perfection.

“If we are forever yearning for more, we are forever discounting what is offered.” ~Julia Cameron

"Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life." ~Dr. David M. Burns

“Perfection is not about what is being done, but rather about the one doing it.” ~Charles Powell

"I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God's business." ~Michael J. Fox