Best the enemy of the good. How to be happy?

2023 Author: Katelyn Chandter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 13:08

We love to chase the ideal all our lives. Replace your phone with the latest model, buy a cooler car, find a more attractive job, get a more spacious apartment, make more money, make your body perfect, replace the other half with a more perfect one. But the constant pursuit of the ideal makes it difficult to live happily.

"An idealist is a person who, having discovered that a rose smells better than cabbage, comes to the conclusion that rose soup will be tastier." Henry Louis Mencken

Everyone knows the proverb "The best is the enemy of the good." We always want something more, perfect and unattainable. That is why we have been running all our lives like driven horses in a circle.

What is the danger of striving for self-improvement? Changing old to new, especially with a large surcharge, should be very careful. In an effort to find a better one that looks like an ideal, we often lose more than we gain.

Best the enemy of the good. A pointless search for the ideal

Buy a new iPhone or car to show off to your friends? To amuse your sense of self-worth? But for this to take out a loan, live for many months on pasta, squeeze financially and limit yourself in everything? A new phone will become obsolete very quickly, just as you won't surprise anyone with a car.

Find a better job? We often change the awl for soap. We find a new job, but it turns out to be not so ideal at all. It takes more time, effort, nerves, but gives a little more money. Spend all your best years and all your time at work? No one regretted in old age that he worked little.

Decided to choose a new girlfriend instead of your old wife? So many men go to their mistresses, hoping for a more ideal woman. But with the new girl, everything is repeated the same way. She also turns out to be in a bad mood, has her own desires and is far from ideal, as it seemed at first glance. Over time, you realize that understanding with your ex-wife was better, like love.

Some people buy more luxurious apartments or houses. Change from a two-room apartment to a four-room apartment or a house? But wallow in loans for half your life? Forget about rest and just think about how to pay off the banks faster? If you cannot afford to increase your living space without problems, then it is better to just live and save money. Why buy one apartment for yourself, and the second for a bank?

How to be happy? Get rid of perfectionism

What is Perfectionism? Perfectionism is the belief that an ideal must be achieved, and a good and imperfect result has no right to exist.

Constant self-improvement is dangerous. Sometimes we are too chasing the ideal. We are on the lookout all the time, but we never find. The perfect apartment, the perfect job, the perfect second half, the perfect athletic figure, the perfect big amount of money.

Striving for self-improvement is good, but the problem is that having achieved what we want, we do not find satisfaction. We want something more all the time, then we will begin to live for real. But for this, everything must be perfect. As a result, they are unhappy all their lives. All our life we are looking, looking, looking, looking, but we do not find the ideal. And in old age we understand that we were never happy.

The best is the enemy of the good if you pursue an ideal and suffer from perfectionism. Stop comparing yourself to others. Success depends on the depth of the hole from which we got out, and not on the top to which we want to climb.

You do not need to strive to be perfect in everything, otherwise you will suffer endlessly. There is no need to chase ideals. Nothing is perfect, and the best is the enemy of the good. Stop clutching at utopian dreams. Enjoy what you have. Cultivate yourself without fanaticism and enjoy life.