Good enough isn’t good anymore

We talk a lot about perfectionism. How it’s ruining us. Burning us out. Paralyzing people like me who need everything to be just right - just so - and won’t stop until it is. And yes, that’s real. I know it intimately.

But I want to talk about something else.

Not the overachievers or the underachievers.

Not the people who never start.

But the people, and systems, who stop at good enough.

Because here’s the thing: good enough has changed.

It’s no longer a balance point. It’s a slow slide.

What used to be average, what used to be baseline ... that’s dropped.

And somehow, we’ve all agreed to be okay with it.

Not because we’re lazy.

But because we’re collectively tired.

We’ve traded precision for speed.

We’ve accepted planned obsolescence in our products, our communication, our care.

And we let it go. Because someone tried, because it's functional, because “at least it works.”

But that bar? That bar is on the ground now.

And I don’t think we should be okay with that.

This isn’t about going full perfectionist again. I know that trap.

This is about remembering that quality matters. Not perfection, but care.

When did it become weird to want something to be great?

Not extreme. Not elite. Just… well-made. Thought through. Done with pride.

We’ve gone soft on standards because we’re scared of sounding difficult.

Or because it’s become too exhausting to expect more.

Or because we’ve confused kindness with compromise.

But letting things be just okay, all the time, isn’t neutral.

It shapes what we tolerate. What we pay for. What we create. What we teach.

And I think we feel it.

In our products that break.

In services that half-listen.

In conversations that slide by without depth.

In ourselves, when we do “just enough” to call something done, but not right.

I’m not saying we need to strive harder.

I’m saying we’re allowed to care.

We’re allowed to say, this could be better.

Not because we’re demanding. But because we still believe in meaning.

Maybe we’ve spent so long battling perfectionism that we forgot its shadow.

The good enough that keeps getting smaller.