My wife and I were commenting on the tremendous value of our most recent trip to Washington, DC. In fact, we said it was the “perfect trip.”
What makes something “perfect?” A lot of things, and nothing, actually.
We use the term “perfect” to represent things that may be anything but, however, for any given number of reasons we feel that the current situation truly meets our needs. And, what is “perfect” in our eyes may not be close to being so to someone else.
What’s also interesting about using the term “perfect” is that as an “end-point” description, nothing should be better than it. And yet, we rarely use it as such. So, while our trip was “perfect,” there were plenty of aspects of it that weren’t perfect. For instance, our girls fought a number of times over the course of the trip, and when they were tired, they were excessively cranky.
Whether in our professional lives or our personal ones, we should welcome the opportunity to describe situations as perfect, even if they aren’t. By doing so, we acknowledge that we won’t necessarily ever hit perfection, and we also show that we can truly enjoy ourselves even when situations still have flaws.
And that’s important.