Good Enough

Last Sunday, my little girl had her very first concert stage hall experience as she did quite well in the last exam.

Turned out it wasn’t only her who got some new experience. I also learned few things that got me thinking.

When we got the result last April that stated she passed the exam with the second highest score, we thought she was the second best in her year.

Turned out we were wrong. There were other three students who are sitting on the first place. THREE.

Yesterday was a recording session for the concert and only one parent allowed to watch it inside. I gave the opportunity to her dad, considering many things like it was father’s day yesterday, he rarely got a chance to witness this, and most of all, I couldn’t handle the tension.

While they were inside, the crew handed ne some goody bag with her certificate, some little presents, and a concert booklet. Reading few profiles of students on the booklet got me analyzing few things.

While all three students on the first place got ‘Excellent’ mark on the award paper, the second and the rest got ‘Good’.

Those three on the first place secured their position by chose some very basic songs for the exam repertoire and played it perfectly, while she, on the second place, (which as far as I know, stand alone), chose slightly higher, harder, yet more interesting repertoires. She played them with high musicality (according to the judges), yet less perfect technical delivery.

The funny things, few days ago, we had morning practice quarrel as usual where she kept insisting that she already did it well,

“I think this is good enough”

“No, it’s not. Go, play again”. (It was far from good).

Grumpily she played again. After few times, I said,

“Nah, that’s good enough,”.

Connecting this event to the one above, that becomes clear why she was on the second place.

That is what we deserved when aiming for good enough during practice.

But, is it wrong? Is it bad? Bien sur, que non.

The last few years showed that excellence has price to pay. Doing things daily, reading about people in many fields who consistently stay on the first place, I could understand why they got it. Their practice level is no joke.

The big question is : do we want it and willing to pay for it?

Excellence requires us to pay more (energy, time, sanity) on the price of paying less for the other things.

(Energy law no.1 : Energy changes form, but the total amount of energy stays the same, so more energy on something means less energy for the other things).

On the other side, it is important to set our own standards and define our own enough.

I value and rate 8pm daily bedtime which allows her to have 8-9 hours sleep/day and eat well the most.

Whenever I tell people she sleeps at 8pm daily, they would look at me with disbelief look. Worse, when I tell them, everyone in the house do the same thing.

It followed by no excuse for morning routines, be focused on every single lesson she does, enough time to play outdoor, free time and being idle doing nothing, being healthy and good mood most of the time.

Consistently doing those above is not an easy feat. For now, that good enough is more than enough, Alhamdulillah.

Beside, what else should I expect as someone who at the same age even couldn’t achieve half of what she had achieved? Of course, what I had done was also nothing compared to her efforts.

Sounds wise, eh?

Not really.

This is actually me who’s trying to elaborate whether this a sincere gratitude post or just an excuse for not doing better than good enough and the ‘laziness’ to improve for the better.

Looking forward to knowing the answer.