1-10-25

Like many of you I woke up this morning to a view that we don’t often get around

here……the snow was falling and quickly accumulating across the back deck and

covering the yard…..as the sun came up I looked out across the water in the big

slough behind our house to see the trees covered in wintry white and the ground

with that strange blanket that makes everything old look new…..so maybe I got a

bit wistful this morning…..something about the snow just kicked in a mellow vibe

and got me to thinking about things that don’t seem that good suddenly seeming

like they’re a bit newer…..call it the snow effect, whatever it is, I like it…..

I was reminded of something that my first boss out of college said one time…..it

was a lesson that I learned that has stuck with me for almost 40 years…..You see,

I’m a perfectionist….I like things to be in the right order, in the right place, at the

right time, for the right reasons……I’m not OCD, I just want things to be done

well…..but sometimes the quest of the perfect can outweigh the view of the good,

if you know what I mean……the quest for the perfect would look at the beautiful

snowfall and decided that I should have mowed the grass one last time before it

got covered up, or that the plants should’ve been protected, or any number of

things that lose sight of the goodness in the moment…..so back to my first boss…..

When I got out of college my first job involved working for a treatment center

with adolescents……I had a great boss……keep in mind that my beautiful wife of

38 years is Charlene…..well, my first boss was also named Charlene…..and when I

told my wife about the name thing her remark was, “oh good, now you have two

bosses named Charlene!”…….anyway, in one of those moments that has stuck

with me forever my boss was going over something with the staff in our

department one day and we were talking through how some project was tough to

accomplish and she said something that I’ve never forgotten……she said,

“perfection and excellence are not the same thing”…….did you catch that?

“perfection and excellence are not the same thing”…….her point has stuck with

me all of my adult years……and the crux of her statement is that we may initiate a

plan at times and it may not hit the mark as planned, or it might shift in its timing,

in other words it may not be perfect down to the smallest detail, but the question

is did we pursue it with excellence……did we go at it in such a way that we left

nothing on the table?.....did we recognize, as the Navy Seals say, that the only

easy day is yesterday and our goal today is to give everything we’ve got to the

mission?....no half measures….no lack of effort…….perfection versus

excellence…..it’s a healthy perspective, it doesn’t mean that you’re not detail

oriented, it doesn’t mean that you’re somehow satisfied with mediocrity, and

certainly doesn’t mean that you’re okay with losing……but what it does mean is

that you will pursue, and pursue, and pursue some more……that your goal may be

a perfect result, but your standard of achievement is excellence in all that you

do…..and sometimes too, when we press down and reach for excellence….we

remember that too often the quest for perfection makes us blind to what is

good…..did you catch that…..the quest for perfection, that blinding, striving, never

satisfied, always grumbling, quest of everything being perfect can make us

absolutely unable to see the goodness of the Lord while we are here in the land of

the living…..

It reminds of what that sage of sitcom wisdom once said…..you know, that grand

old wise man who gave us life lessons on TV every week for years…..I’m talking

about Sherrif Andy Taylor……there was one episode of the Andy Griffith Show that

is still heralded as one of the best episodes ever…..it didn’t just entertain people,

it blessed people…..TV Guide ranked it as one of the top 100 TV episodes of all

time…..it originally aired back in 1963 as the first episode of season 4 and the title

of it is “Opie the Birdman”……it’s a tale about seeing the good….about taking

ownership of something and not allowing circumstances to define you…..it’s

about perfection versus excellence…..so in the episode Barney made an old

fashioned slingshot for Opie…..of course Barney immediately shot out a window

trying to show him how to use it…..but Opie thought it was great….

Playing outside, Opie is shooting at various targets with his new toy. Seeing

something in the tree in his front yard, he aims and shoots and kills a bird, which

falls to the ground in front of him……. Opie was torn up….he first refused to

believe the bird is dead and pleads for it to fly away…… When he realizes what he

has done, he ran to his room crying his eyes out…..so his Dad found the dead bird

later and the guilt-ridden Opie confessed what he had done with his

slingshot…..he said he was sorry…..but Andy told him that being sorry isn’t

enough….he walked over and opened Opie’s bedroom window so that he could

hear the baby birds in their nest calling for the mama bird that Opie had

killed…..Well, Opie decided he was going to raise those baby birds….he put them

in a cage, fed them every day and gave all three of them names……but Andy

reminded him that they were wild birds at heart and that one day they’d have to

be let go…..so that day finally came….Andy stood with Opie in the yard as he

talked to the birds he had raised….he wanted to keep them…..his idea of perfect

was have them in the cage…..but the better plan was to let them go so Opie

opened the cage door and they flew out…..in what has to be one of the best lines

ever written for any show, Opie looked at the cage and said that the little cage

sure did look empty……but Andy just smiled and looked up and said, “yeah, but

don’t the trees seem nice and full?”

I love that line…..it was spot on…..and I know that in my own life I tend to too

often see the empty cage instead of the full trees….my quest for the perfect can

outweigh my appreciation for the good…..and sometimes, if you get down to

it…..the good really is the perfect…..

But this monologue is not meant to be one that just pats you on the head and

tells you sleep it off and maybe you’ll feel better tomorrow…… This is the one that

tells you to shake it off and get back in the game……if you’re out there demanding

perfection but losing sight of the good, then put your mind back in order…..I

believe that 2025 is fresh…..it ain’t perfect, but it’s like the snow on the

ground……it creates a freshness, a vibrance, a clarity that wasn’t there before…..

are you content with where we are now….I’m most certainly not!…..but yet, I am

so appreciative…..like down in my core appreciative…..I am thankful that we have

a new day in front of us, with new leadership, and new opportunities……and

we’re going to do something with it! I’m telling you…….and it won’t always be

perfect, but Lord its so good…… This is bigger than us…..I can look at my children

and grandchildren and know with great clarity that I want more for them…..I can

look at the legacy left for me by my parents and grandparents and know that I

don’t want to see it squandered…..I can look at the vast resources, the history,

the tone and tenor of what this nation has meant to the greater expanse of the

world….

And then it’s the small things…..things that I am grateful for …..I can smell the

fresh cut grass on a Saturday morning, the sound of singing in church on a

Sunday, the well-worn feeling of my office chair where gainful work is done, the

memories of my time in military service, the thanks of my clients who needed

help, Christmas gatherings with my grown kids, or the joy of sitting on the deck in

the cool of a southern evening having a glass of wine with my sweet wife….and I

know that all of it…..ALL of it is worth staying in the game for…..none of it is

perfect, but it is so so good…..

Perfection is not an option……shake it off……right now…..perfection and

excellence are two different things…..and we have some excellent things in front

of us…..work within the constraints of your current environment…..work within

your sphere of influence…..reach out and stretch your wings a bit…..shake the

dust off of your talking points…..put on the full armor…..remember that God has

not given us a spirit of fear but one of power, and love and self-discipline….he

promises us a peace that surpasses all understanding…..

Perfection versus excellence…..they are not the same thing…..one is a goal, an

aspiration, and the other…..the other, excellence……is a way of life……we should

always strive to pursue our callings with excellence……and if we do that we will

see the good……

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way…..