When Good Enough is Not Good Enough

On Wednesday, I ventured outside for the first time after 20 inches of snow fell. I noticed that there were several large mounds of snow on the driveway; places where the snow had been pushed or piled up by the team that had plowed the driveway the day before.

As I returned from my walk, I started to shovel some of the snow on the driveway to clear it better. After about 10 minutes, I stopped. I had to get ready for a call, so I didn’t have much time. Also, I realized that my parents had been able to get the cars out, so maybe I didn’t need to shovel. Maybe nothing needed to be fixed.

Maybe it was “good enough.”

The next day I ran out for a quick errand. Returning to the house, the car got stuck in a mound of snow, mere feet from the garage.

After a few tries to push the car forward or reverse, the smell of gasoline prompted me to shut the engine.

I got the shovel and started digging out.

For the 90 minutes that I shoveled to clear enough snow to move the car into the garage, I wrestled with big slabs of packed snow and with the tension of “good enough.”

How do we know when to trust that “good enough” is enough for now?

The driveway seemed to be plowed “good enough.”

Until it wasn’t. Until the car got stuck.

Perhaps there are times when “good enough” is really “good enough.”

This moment didn’t feel like one of them.

I was tempted to stop shoveling once I moved the car into the garage, but the big mound where the car got stuck was still there. To me, this wasn’t “good enough.” I didn’t want to get stuck again.

So I continued to shovel, to at least break up some of the snow so it could have a chance to melt.

After another 90 minutes — a total of 3 hours shoveling — the driveway was still not clear. A couple of big snow mounds remained.

But it was dark, I was hungry, and my body was hurting in a way it has not hurt in a long time.

My body forced me to surrender to “good enough for now.”

Was it “good enough”?

I don’t know. But it had to be because my body had enough.