The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Most everyone wants to become or make good.  That is OK.  And, that is that.

Try to be perfect or to become the sigle best is very risky as well as painful.

Painful---you know that already.

Risky---you may fail even to be good.

 

Why's that?   Because we all are human beings --- we cannot do everything well: we cannot always

be right..

 

Simply put, you'd better learn to be satisfied with a B+ or Ao, not necessarily with an A+.

That is life!

 

We almost always take the second best in our society, too.  And nothing around us

is perfect. Refer to the following popular sayings :

 

1) Every coin has two tails.

Meaning every one, except for you date partner, has an ugly (weak, dishonest, shameful,

or dark) side as well as a pretty one.

 

2) There is no alternative aka TINA.

That's Thatcherite mantra meaning the free-market system is the better choice,

not the best.

 

3) Democracy is the worst form of government

    except for all those others that have been tried.

By Winston Churchill

 

4) The best is the enemy of the good.

By Voltaire

 

5) 孫子曰, 無所不備, 卽無所不寡

Sun-tzu says, "To be prepared everywhere is to be weak everywhere."

 

6) 子夏曰, 大德不踰閑 小德出入可也 

Minor errors are acceptable as long as the big picture is in good shape. 

By a Confucian disciple    

 

7) 구더기 무서워 장못 담그랴?

Fearful of worms, you cannot make soy sauce.

A Korean saw

 

After all,

- No one, including your mom, is perfect.

- No policy is flawless.

- No theory  holds always true.    

- No market is totally efficient.

- Nothing is completely anything. (Eugene Fama, 2010)

 

 

<Case in point> Law of Unitended Consequences

Every time we act to address one set of problems, the chances are that we unintentionallly set in

train a new rash of problems. Often, the benefits of the action hugely outweigh the new problems,

but not always. In the case of arirbags, they have turned out to have a paricularly nasty habit

of killing young passengers. "Airbags have been blamed for the deaths of 22 babies and small

children so far--eight last year," Fortune reported in 1996

       ……

       Today's statistics suggest … that one baby or small child dies for every 70 or so lives

saved. … [The] US government announced that less powerful airbags would save the lives

of dozens of children each year, yet could cost the lives of between 133 and 1,203 adults!

(J. Elkington 1997, p. 200)