Naomi Osaka’s story stood out to me as a testament to her saying ‘enough,’ the recent story of fellow Olympian Simone Biles caught my attention for a different reason. The article I read was titled ‘Simone Biles and the Weight of Perfection.’
As a recovering perfectionist, reading her struggle hit home. Granted, I was (surprise!) never in the international spotlight. I can still sense the weight she felt. The weight that, for her, had become a burden too much to bear.
The thing is, folks like Simone who are in the international spotlight and who are beginning to speak up about the damage pursuing perfection can have will give others a voice to do the same. In my own battle against perfection’s alluring pull, I’ve gotten to appreciate and embrace the idea of the ordinary. It’s why I brought up the film ‘A Hidden Life’ way back when. What would the world look like I wonder if, rather than perfection, we acknowledged and celebrated the ordinary? The small acts of kindness and the quiet moments of beauty.
K’s aunt was here the other week. The two of them were having a conversation about parenting when I caught K saying, ‘We try to do our best.’ Her aunt’s reply summed this up nicely: ‘All you have to be is good enough.’
