In lieu of a March 11 entry…
I don’t have a March 11th entry for you all. The person who was assigned March 11th had a family emergency and wasn’t able to record their day. I completely understand and don’t want them to feel bad about this. These things happen and I hope that they and their loved ones are healthy and safe. This project is meant to be a reflection of our lives, and it would be disingenuous if unexpected things didn’t come up and we didn’t address them.
Not having an entry for today actually got me reflecting on the project, something I’ve gotten to do a little bit, but I realized that I haven’t actually written anything down. Maybe I’ve covered it a bit in my own personal journal, but I’m always scared to look back at my journal entries—they’re so unpolished and they make me feel like a bad writer, which is not fun for me, especially since I’ve kind of decided to dedicate my life to the act of writing.
But this “bad writing” represents a sense of urgency. I want to remember everything, and my desire to get everything down on paper, to sacrifice eloquence for the sake of memory, shows where my priorities lie when it comes to keeping my personal archive: I don’t need to prove to myself that I’m a good writer, I need to prove to myself that I exist.
Most of us don’t have time to let the perfect get in the way of the good. I certainly don’t, but that’s not to say I haven’t tried. The first time I heard that quote, “don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good,” I was newly 14 years old, standing in the middle of my purple childhood bedroom during my first week of high school, sobbing amongst a pile of textbooks. I had SO much homework and I was exhausted: I was playing a new sport, trying to make new friends, to give my teachers a good first impression, and not let my parents down by failing assignments or getting in trouble. It was already late, and I probably had three more hours of homework ahead of me. The only thing that made sense to do was cry! (I put a lot of pressure on myself as a teenager and I think it probably would have been more productive to experiment with weed instead.)
My parents stood in the threshold of my room and my dad did what all dads who love the movie Hoosiers would do: he gave me a pep talk. I don’t remember the pep talk, but I do remember him saying “don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good,” in regards to me probably not being able to both do my homework well and finish it before midnight, and that moment triggered something in my brain that would have a profoundly positive impact on me from that day forward (not to be dramatic or anything).
At the time of writing this, I have no idea where the quote, “don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good” comes from, and Wikipedia is showing me something called the “Pareto principle,” which makes it seem incredibly pedestrian. If you go to the “Origin” section on the Wikipedia entry for “Perfect is the enemy of the good,” it attributes the quote to Voltaire, which I’ve decided is true because that explanation feels more glamorous. (I’ve never read Candide, but I’ve thought about reading Candide and THAT is an example of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.)
Basically, the Pareto principle states that persistence on perfection often prevents implementation on good improvements (that’s the exact language from the Wikipedia page. I would never construct that sentence—the P sound alliteration is excruciating). After hearing my father repeat that quote so many times, it kind of became ingrained in my head that if I kept striving for perfection (as I am wont to do), I’d never get anything done. I’ve repeated “don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good” as a sort of mantra to myself, especially when I’m writing, but also when I’m trying a new recipe, when I’m planning my birthday party, when I’m doing my makeup, when I’m applying for jobs and so on. (If you’ve ever seen a perfect cover letter please let me know…) And of course, it applies to the A Year in Philadelphia project.
This project wasn’t born out of anything having to do with the “perfect,” or even the “good.” It was born out of me being sad and bored one day this past September. I didn’t feel like I could do anything to combat my own sadness and boredom, so that’s why I turned to my community to conduct this experiment. I needed, desperately, to have something to look forward to every day. I also needed, desperately, to know that other people were having bad days that they also spent mostly horizontal. I decided to follow my impulse immediately and make an Instagram post explaining my idea. There was no overthinking, no idea of what a “successful” A Year in Philadelphia project would look like, just a basic human desire for connection and community that was strong enough to make me want to try.
At first I was a bit baffled by the amount of interest this idea garnered in a few short months, but then I remembered something else that always comforts me, which is that none of my thoughts and feelings and experiences are unique. Of course there are at least 366 people in the city of Philadelphia who want connection with their community, who want to be seen within it. The nature of this project doesn’t allow enough time for the perfect. The urgency of us all existing together is good enough.
—Molly
