trash-can1I have this nasty habit of “close enough“. So I toss a piece of garbage toward the can and sometimes it goes right in. Other times it just misses and lands by the side of the can.

“Close enough!”.

And I walk away. Sorry to disappoint you … if you followed me long enough, maybe 5-10 minutes you’d make the discovery yourself. I have flaws. Some are old familiar flaws that I have almost given up on.

Others are newer. I am almost 58 years old and still finding them.

But back to “close enough“. It occurred to me the other day that if I left the garbage close enough to the can, someone was going to have to come along, pick it up and put it where it belonged in the first place. Most likely my wife since we are empty nesters. So in settling for “close enough”, I was really dumping responsibility off on the most precious person in my life.

She is truly my “better 13/16ths”. I need her to outlive me otherwise I will be in deep trouble.

Maybe you are a “close enough person” as well. You take things out and fail to put them away. Please envision the person your are covertly enlisting to be your slave. Who is it that you visualize who will finish what you started? Who is it that will take the extra minute from their schedule that you didn’t have time to take from your own?

At the end of the day, the heart of the issue is selfishness and failure to accept responsibility. If you were the victim instead of the perpetrator, how would you like it?

Every courtesy that you forsake, every task that you avoid, every unpleasant issue that you refuse to address is a “close enough” thing. And you are dumping all over others when you refuse to come face to face with this flaw.

This is one that I cannot afford to give up on regardless of how familiar it is to me.

– KI