Whatever happened to good enough?

How perfectionism ate dating, fitness and common sense

She’s fit enough to carry that big fish.*****

In a nutshell, good enough got wiped out by perfection. Our modern (or maybe I should say post-modern) culture has erased it. I’m sure you’ve noticed. If it isn’t perfect, it just isn’t good enough. And that’s toxic.

Embracing good enough, has so much to offer for life in general, and for fitness in particular.

In life, people go through partners, searching for the perfect fit, instead of trying to make it work with a decent, good enough person. After all, chances are you will not find perfection and will marry the wrong person anyway, so why not spend your energy on working out the problems.*

In fitness, chasing Instagram selfies and the perfection of other people’s bodies** causes us to be unhappy with the anything that’s less than perfect. And then there is a perfection treadmill - you’re never able to actually reach the ideal. Good enough feels like you’re settling, like it’s a failure. And then you’re sliding down an inclined plane: if it’s not possible to reach perfection, if good enough is a failure, then why bother at all?***

Yet, good enough is a fantastic thing. It will not help you to break records at the Olympics, but this is not your job. Your job is your job. And then your other job is to get through your day with enough strength and stamina to carry you till the evening. The good enough fitness gives excellent health benefits, while fitness perfection causes you to dig yourself an early grave.****

My advice is to embrace the good enough. And if you’re looking for a place to start, do Japanese Radio Taiso.

Below the line:

*See Alain de Botton’s essay, Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person.

**These bodies were probably attained using steroids, diuretics and an assortment of PEDs. Their owners can can only hold that particular pose for 5 seconds and need special lighting and digital filters.

***You should bother, and follow the middle path between The Twin Death Valleys of Fitness I wrote about before.

****Don’t be smug if you’re not doing anything - you’re playing with fire too - you’re in as much risk as those chasing the perfection.

*****Japanese woodcut by Shiro Kasamatsu ‘Girls on the Shore, Fukuura’ (1954).

I’m an anthropologist who tackled the fitness industry like a research project. Unsurprisingly, turned out it’s mostly nonsense. But buried beneath it all I found enough ancient wisdom and sound science to put together something that works: ten to fifteen minutes a day, most days. Just enough.

You’ll find the free stuff here and on my YouTube channel. The paid work, for people who want clear structure to follow, is on Buy Me a Coffee. The book is in the works.