“Fruits & Vegetables-19-045 – Pear, 4” Photo by artvintage1800s.etsy.com (CC BY 2.0)

What does Fruitful Too mean?

The phrase was one I overheard, just at the end of someone’s sentence, “… but those projects could also be fruitful too.” Little words, but they reminded me of a big idea I’d been noticing. We work so hard to identify the best job, best workout, best playlist, best burger, best charity to send our money to, best practices for our industry, the highest passion we hold so that we can pursue it with out best effort. And best is great – Olympic athletes turn regular old sports into feats of beauty.

But sometimes the effort to find the best distracts us from all of the things that are great in their own right even if they’re not #1. Sometimes we get paralyzed by the act of weighing our options, when there’s not that much difference between them, and no objective way to measure it if there was. I would call that effort perfectionism. Applying perfectionism to yourself is considered normal, if unhealthy, but it’s revealing that applying perfectionism to your spouse is considered abuse, and that’s the more truthful word for that effort.

We limit ourselves so much in the pursuit of the best of everything, because…there’s only one of #1. There is so much of value strewn around the foot of the podium. I hope to call attention to some of that fruit I find. Over here!