Is Anything Ever Perfect?

I’m a perfectionist, which is really difficult to be. I’m hard on everyone but most especially myself. I have the highest standards and, when they’re not met, I can be terribly disappointed . . . and not all that fun to be around.

Recently, I picked up my latest shipment of eco-friendly cloth bags for my company, EcoVixen (http://www.ecovixen.com/), and the copy on one side of one design is fuzzy. I thought, for sure, that the company who prints and sews the bags for me would apologize profusely and redo the bags.

I was wrong.

They claim the bags meet their high standards and that, in essence, I am too much of a perfectionist. Huh? I want my contribution to the green movement to be right—if “right” means “perfect” well then that's what I want. But they won’t budge and won’t take the bags back, which leaves me in a terrible predicament.

I’ve decided to sell the bags as 1/3-off seconds; this cuts into my already-small profit margin, of course, but I can’t stand behind the bags as first-quality products. I’m actually shocked at my bag company’s reaction and may not ever work with them in the future, at least not in terms of printing.

Here’s the twist to this story: I’ve suffered two losses in the last two weeks and am trying to keep this entire thing in perspective. Is anything ever perfect? And is it worth trying to attain perfection at every turn? Is good enough actually good enough?

Question of the blog: What’s your take on perfection?