Last week's post focused on impeccability as a possible key to integrity. Raising the question of impeccability coupled with having quoted a reader who found inspiration from Carlos Castaneda on the subject seemed to inspire many while riling the sensibilities of others.
Some took inspiration from the aspirational focus of living to a higher standard, while others trashed the idea as impossible (given the implied notion of impeccable as perfect). Fortunately, this turns out to be another one of those cases where "you're both right." Kind of.
Kind of like one of my favorite quotes from Mark Twain: "All generalizations are false, including this one."
Indeed, perfection is unlikely to be achieved on this planet, and yet striving for impeccability just might be worth the effort. As Dylene wrote to me in an email following last week's article:
Several things came up for me around this great blog, and will most likely continue to do so. Impeccability is a goal for me in my work and my life. While I can't pretend I always attain it, the standard is a good one for me personally.
- Commitment to deadlines: This has created a more healthy dynamic in my life--in working hard to under-promise and over deliver, I am conscious of the commitments I make nowadays--it wasn't always true. It helps me keep my work impeccable.
- In the example in your blog of the appointment and searching for a reason to cancel: the times I have done this, it's because I agreed to something that didn't engage my passion. I'm a little more selective now about where I choose to spend my life, and that has increased the quality of my contribution to the places I do attend now. It makes it easier to be impeccable.
You can agree or disagree with Dylene and her approach. You can dismiss her approach to impeccability for any number of reasons. However, if you're Dylene, you have made a choice (striving for impeccability) that has enriched your life, and, most likely, the lives of those with whom you interact.
If you keep playing with this for a bit, you may wind up at a collision point in your thinking: on the one hand, pursuing perfection can lead to perfection paralysis. If the goal is perfection, there will always be one more iteration, one more improvement, one more change that will help move things along. However, moving things along is motion, not perfection.
On the other hand, if you abandon the pursuit of perfection, you may then wind up settling for "good enough." What's good enough? Is there a standard by which "good enough" could be determined? One person's good enough could well be another person's abject failure.
There is a classic story of Debbie Fields, founder of Mrs. Fields Cookies, who early on found herself on a visit to one of the first stores in her chain. Apparently, she was fond of saying something to the effect that you should set your standards so high that even your flaws are considered excellent.
On a surprise visit to the store in question, she came upon a long line of customers waiting for her freshly baked cookies. However, she also noticed the cookies that were coming out of the ovens were overcooked by her standards.
When she asked the manager to taste them before serving, he replied that they were "good enough." Legend has it that having more than a little pride in her products and her name, she replied "Good enough never is."
Debbie apparently took the whole batch and tossed them in the trash and told him to start over. She then went to each of the customers in line, explaining what she had done and why. She let them know that she wanted them to enjoy perfect cookies and offered them free product when it came back up.
Of course, Debbie Fields was acutely aware of the phenomenon, "you-never-get a-second-chance-to-make-a-first-impression" and just how competitive the industry already was. She did not want to risk her brand image with product she considered inferior.
And so "Good enough never is" became the watch word for Mrs. Fields Cookies. Eventually, this lead to a series of standards about cookies including how long they could sit on shelves before being declared "cookie orphans" and donated to local charities.
I guess "cookie orphans" were good enough for someone.
I think the story points to a dilemma, one which plays out in these pages almost daily. Critics can take reasonably good, well-intentioned advice, and twist it beyond recognition by finding fault. In the case of impeccability, some discarded the potential value of the pursuit by raising the perfection flag -- something with which I actually agree: Striving for perfection without being willing to accept "good enough" can lead to an "impossible dream."
Then there's the Castaneda-as-fraud argument. That one is really confounding. If you happen to be one of those supercilious critics, all too ready to dismiss ideas of potential merit because of a flaw you can identify with a proponent of the idea, then it must be really difficult to get out of bed in the morning.
After all, just about every idea, no matter how strong, uplifting or just plain correct, has been uttered, flaunted, touted, misused and otherwise abused by people of all walks and persuasions. Just because a bad guy uses a truthful notion with ill intent, does not make the idea bad.
Perhaps the old cliché about separating the wheat from the chaff comes to mind.
Or, you may be happy to settle for this piece of advice from Mark Twain: "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."
I hope you are finding this discussion on living a life of integrity and meaning worthwhile. Or, at least "good enough."
What do you think?
Please do leave a comment here or drop me an email and let me know how this strikes you.
Russell Bishop is an Educational Psychologist, author, executive coach and management consultant, based in Santa Barbara California. You can find out more about Russell at http://www.lessonsinthekeyoflife.com. Contact Russell by email at: Russell (at) lessonsinthekeyoflife.com
Follow Russell Bishop on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Russell_Bishop
By the way, also for what it's worth, I could never finish Castaneda. I didn't get it and then I did and I didn't need it.
Well said.
3:15 PM CST
Quote :
"Mark Twain: "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."
Yes. Twain. My favorite standby for both Scoundrels and Saints. Bierce and Mencken too.
Please tell what happened to your extended metaphor; I mean, the real "Mrs. Field's" cookies.
Used to be my favorite in my San Jose days, in the 80s when they first came out. Like the earlier days of "Castaneda", I was there too, when the first "Mrs. Fields" cookie was baked.
Now, very sad to say, she must have sold out...and they are still using her name. Now they are nothing to compare with the original; now they are dried up, pre-packaged monstrosities of processed "baker" glue.
"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."
Yes. Thank you Sam.
J.B.
8/9/10
11:45 AM CST
Yes. You have posited the "Mrs Fields" cookie phenomenon as metaphor to frame a discussion about individual "integrity", "impeccability" and the old quixotic cliche : The avoidance mechanism of "being good enough".
Perhaps I was not clear. Perhaps expanding the metaphor would be in order.
Question. How does your excellent metaphor square with you position on individual integrity and individual responsibility ? Did the poor woman die ? Did she stop caring about her creation ? Is she 150 years old ? (I don't have time to "Google" any of this !).
It sounds like she sold out. If that is the case, your brief anecdote makes an interesting tale (straw man ?) of ideal individual responsibility, but falls short of any universal instruction about integrity.
For all we know, the real "Mrs Fields" may have been an overbearing, manipulative, greedy...well, the point is made.
Whoever she was, she once made a good cookie !
J.B.
8/12/10
I'm reminded of a recent interview with Dr Larry Dossey, an allopathic physician who, for fear of ridicule, was for many years afraid to speak of the role premonition played in his medical practice. He talked at length about skeptics, genuine skeptics and the false kind, quoting one of the latter's hilarious statement that:
"I wouldn't believe it even if it were true."
Dossey describes how the latter kind of skeptic in medicine labeled the introduction of meditation to the field forty years ago as "California woo-woo". Now no one bats an eye at the idea.
Ego is a powerful master, it really and truly is. Ego drives that kind of skepticism and criticism. It's the ego's fear of the unknown and its false vanity over its rigid unwillingness to open up and step into that unknown. Instead it finds things to pick at.
On impeccability: there's no rigid perfectionism involved. There's only the self-awareness necessary to know what you can and cannot do, and being completely honest about it. You won't make promises you have no intention of keeping, or promises you may not be able to keep. You acknowledge your weaknesses.
You also take personal responsibility for everything in your life. At that level of responsibility you won't ever see yourself as a victim (instead it's fabulous challenges) and you won't make excuses or lie about things. As a result you walk your talk in word, action, and thought.
Blessings to you,
RB
I used to do procedural business development. I would develop business procedures to make work flow through office more efficiently. Whenever I would draft a procedure, I would always come up with better ideas. Some of those ideas, I couldn't implement or document because the company wasn't ready for them. Either they didn't have the money, or weren't big enough, etc. So, I would willingly leave out great ideas so that I could implement something that would work in the interim.
Life is like that. The improvement of self is among the most virtuous of ambitions. It makes us better, it makes our families and friends better and it ultimately makes our communities better.
So maybe, perfection is game we forever chase, but never capture.