Mediocrity is not an option. But….

January 29, 2008

So, we’re slowly but surely organizing our new dwelling.

It shouldn’t be this big of deal, I keep thinking — but in reality this is the first time, probably in 5 years or so, that we’re attempting to properly organize a house. In 2002 we moved out of the apartment we lived in, into a cob (adobe) cottage my wife and I were building at the time. It was 200 sq. ft. We left most of the things in storage.

When we abandoned that project in 2006 and moved into a duplex, we took everything out of storage — into a garage. Still, no need to deal with our stuff.

This time, we don’t have a garage but we have a basement. Except we want to use our basement for stuff other than just storage and laundry.

But more than that, we want to thrive now. We have graduated from merely surviving, yes we have. We want a home that’s really optimized for our life. After all, it’s not a big place and we don’t have lots of stuff.

Well — having gotten rid of most of organizational tools years ago, and obviously owning no furniture (in the year since moving out of our cottage, we only acquired a mattress, which we’re laying on top of a futon frame we’ve had for 10 years), we are really starting from scratch.

And in our household, we accept no mediocrity. We’re not perfectionist, but we do have high standards. Everything we own, have to make us feel good about owing it. So no particle board is allowed, and plastic gets bad rep around here. But we also don’t want to pay full price on things, and we have to make sure things fit together and they look good in our house.

So making a purchasing decision on a single piece can take multiple shopping trips. We carefully comb through our stores, figure out what are on sale and at what price, meticulously compare and contrast all our options, carefully consider the options of getting them delivered vs. renting a truck, and….

Well, you get the picture. I’m tired now.

And we’re not close to being finished.

Switching gear to music, I sometimes listen to albums and wonder if the artists felt great about all the songs or just some of them. Clearly, some collections are made up around a few “singles” and the rest, fillers. Maybe this happens because they’re obligated by their record contract to deliver certain albums, with certain number of songs, and they do need to fill the space.

I may be naive to think this after having done just one album, but I wouldn’t want to call the album finished until I feel good about every song. Perfectionist I am not, but you can call me excellencionist. I just don’t feel good about it.

So, my choices are, either 1) relax my standards and accept mediocrity, because it’s easy and quick, or 2) pursue excellence and spend much time struggling in that pursuit, while you could be out enjoying the day.

My choice, though at this point it doesn’t even seem like one, has always been the latter. It’s exhausting, but I just don’t see it any other way.

Once again, life is about how you learn to deal with yourself.

Filed under: Ari, Music, Reflections | Comments (0)