Voltaire is quoted as having claimed that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Recently I heard someone assert, without any reference to Voltaire, that good is the enemy of best. While both adages firmly identify the combatants, each appears to take a different side in the battle. One implies that we may fail to accomplish something good while we
vainly pursue an unrealistic ideal; the other warns us not to settle for what is merely good. How can we know when we really have done our best? Where is the “sweet spot” where the possible and the improbable meet?
I have been thinking about this tension as I consider what changes a budget cut may require. There may be areas where the ideal that we have hoped for actually is getting in the way of our doing something very good, yet different. And perhaps in other places we should have pushed the envelope further and have settled for “good enough.” As we decide where limited resources should be invested, surely we want to hit as many of those sweet spots as we can.
Aiming for perfect probably leads to us trying too few things, while settling for good likely encourages us to spread ourselves too thin. I tell students that my goal is for them to surprise themselves by what they are able to accomplish in my class. That isn’t just code for “You may think my expectations are unrealistic,” though it is that, too. It is a time-worn observation that students are capable of more than they think they are, and it is my job to push them out beyond the boundaries they can see. That’s somewhere between “perfect” and “good enough.”
As we look at our academic programs and attempt to put resources where they are best used, we should ask, Where are the areas where we surprise ourselves? Where do the possible and the improbable meet? Not where are we flawless, nor where are we good enough to get by, but where are we truly making a difference?
Let the perfect and the good duke it out among themselves. It’s usually dangerous to stick your nose into someone else’s fight. And if you must quote Voltaire, here’s a line I like better, anyway: “What we find in books is like the fire in our hearths. We fetch it from our neighbors, we kindle it at home, we communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.”
