Bonjour Royal Friends!
Welcome to my blog, a tongue-in-chic lifestyle and happiness guide from a funny princess point of view!
Today I’d like to talk to you about psychological liberation through the concept of “Good Enough.” Or as I like to say, Good Enough is the new fabulous!
Do you go through life brushing up against “things that need to get done” and “I’ve gotta get around to fixing this” that bother you every single day? I’m not talking about highbrow things like relationships or health, I’m talking more daily grind granular things like organizing closets, painting bedrooms, or Marie Kondo-ing your (too much) stuff.
Often these granular things hit us in the face every single day and cause agitation. I believe the agitation comes because these things we need to get done subconsciously symbolize a more perfect life. A life where the order you crave exists. A life where everything goes right and it’s all under control. A life that’s kind of close to approaching the “P” word….perfect.
Well I propose a new way of looking at life. What if we change this unwieldy narrative? What if we decide not to look at things that we need to get done but haven’t quite yet as “GE”….GOOD ENOUGH?
For example, what if every time we enter the wilds of our untidy closet(s) we realize that while we may want to color code our clothes and organize our shoes, until the itch becomes too hard to ignore and we have to scratch it, for now we’re going to accept the mess “as is” because…you guessed it… it’s good enough. A closet’s “situation” doesn’t keep us from getting our lives done. I bet last time you looked you didn’t leave the house in your birthday suit for want of a more perfect closet arrangement.
What if we could roll over and play dead on our disappointments with some of the neglected items on our To Do’ lists? Maybe we could change how we look at things that ain’t broke but need fixing. Maybe we could see them as workable just not ideal? That’s not so bad. Not ideal can still be okay. Let’s make it more than okay. Let’s see Good Enough as the new Fabulous! That would sure suck a ton of tension out of our days.
I came to this realization about Good Enough being the new fabulous this morning. I have a hall closet in my palace that has two huge plastic tub bins stacked one on top of the other, each one overstuffed to the gills with my winter accessories such as gloves, hats and scarves, as well as spring, summer, and fall accessories like rain hats, sun-hats, and visor hats. This is not the most efficient solution to harboring accessories since one has to go digging up to one’s elbows to find what one is searching for. How many times I have gone Bin Diving for my fancy pair of black gloves or for the other red one, or my navy blue French beret? This morning I was sifting through the morass looking for my lavender pom pom hat and scarf set. Dagnabit! Why don’t I get to this situation that has been on my To Do List only like forever!
My annoyance triggered a memory. I thought back to the other day when I was about to leave the house to go to a glamorous event and people were already waiting for me in the carriage. I suddenly realized I needed a rain hat. Oopsie. I was going to have to face The Bin. I started digging, and searching, and burrowing, and tunneling for one of my fashionable rain hats, one that is crafted of fabric, not plastic, with a wide, glamorous brim. To my dismay I couldn’t find one! Did I throw the fancy rain hats out? Did I put them in the bottom bin? Did I imagine them?
I broke into a nervous sweat, which in princess terms is merely a mist. My cohorts were awaiting, not patiently I was pretty sure. Time for Plan B. I grabbed the ugly, brimless, portable plastic rain-hat that lives in the bottom of my purse, admonishing myself for not getting around to the “To Do” of a better solution for my stuff in the hall closet. I thought about all the days I spend in agitation over this less than ideal closet situation….one which I have the power to fix any time I want.
‘Twas then that I had another princess epiphany. I’m tired of giving myself heartburn over and over again because of my dangling To Do’s. So with regard to my hall closet I said to myself, “Princess? Just for now, you’re going to change your perspective on your closet organizational situation. You’re not going to let it give you agitation. You are going to see the situation differently. You are going to focus on the fact that whatever To Do situation you haven’t gotten around to doing, that situation “as is” is usually workable and functioning. Not ideal, perhaps, but functioning. So until you get around to tackling your closet To Do, you are going to characterize your messy hall closet bin debacle as not ideal but GOOD ENOUGH!”
Likewise, in other areas of my life, instead of fretting over the lack of perfect order for things that are still on my To Do list I’ve decided to wink at them and hail them as Good Enough until I get around to choosing to make the magic happen. Bedroom walls need painting but I haven’t gotten around to hiring a painter? For now, it’s Good Enough! I’m not having nightmares about the walls. Need to organize (clear out!) kitchen cabinets so pots and pans don’t snag on the lids when I’m pulling them out to cook? For now, it’s Good Enough! Dinner always gets made.
Life is short and we only have so much time in a day/week/month/year/life to dedicated to living. Duh-uh. We set priorities like family/health/finances/downtime. Duh-uh. Often it’s just too darn hard or we are too darn exhausted to get around to attacking some of the grittier details of our lives that we want to address, like organizing closets, painting the bedroom, or Marie Kondo-ing our (too much) stuff. Thus, until we decide to allocate the time needed to make these types of improvements in our lives that we know we can but haven’t, let’s liberate ourselves from self-bashing and undo annoyance. Let’s hashtag them as #Good Enough. Let’s not let the imperfection of the untended To Do list crimp our style anymore.
Let’s make not ideal but Good Enough the new Fabulous!
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P.S.You can grab my book BONJOUR, BREAST CANCER⏤I’M STILL SMILING! here: https://amzn.to/2MFKCc7. Bring someone (or yourself) the gift of hope and optimsim who is touched by breast cancer. Winner Independent Author’s Network Book of the Year Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction.
x♥x♥x♥,
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Dame Diane Uniman, Aka Princess Diane von Brainisfried, is an attorney turned motivational speaker, certified positive psychology life coach and award-winning writer. She wrote Bonjour, Breast Cancer-I’m Still Smiling…Wit, Wisdom, and Optimism for Beating the Breast Cancer Blues.