Knowing I was going to marry my wife came pretty quick after just starting to date her. But when I finally decided it was time to pop the question, I knew it had to be perfect and I started to plan! It was like I turned into Kevin McCallister in Home Alone, unrolling sketched out mastermind plots to create the perfect proposal. But first things first, I had to get the ring. And of course THAT HAD to be perfect. Immediately I began to draw out what I thought she might like. After a few drafts I finally landed on something I knew was good, folded the sketch in my hands, smashed it in my pocket and rushed to the jewelry store. Nervously I entered a room full of glass cases and skeptical store workers with faces that seemed to mulling over in their minds whether or not I was going to be a good use of their time. I tried to pretend like I’ve done this before but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t fooling anyone. I looked around on my own for a bit until finally one of the workers asked if I needed help. I quickly explained that I wanted to propose and that I had this idea for a ring and showed off my doodle and asked if they had anything that was similar to that. The worker frowned, looked at the wrinkled paper and started to scan the rings in the cases. She would glance at the paper and scan, glance a the paper and scan some more. All while saying that she didn’t think they did because-and then suddenly stopped and reached into a glass box and pulled out THE RING. There it was! What I drew…in the flesh! The worker seemed just as surprised as I was! You could tell that all the stars had aligned and all of heaven were smiling down on this very moment. And then I thought, “There is no way it’s that easy.” So I handed back the ring and said I had to think about it. You might be thinking the same thing that the worker was saying with her face. And that was, “What!? Are you kidding me!?” I know! It was kind of stupid. But I had worked three jobs at the same time to save up for this ring. It just seemed too easy. So I searched jewelry store after jewelry store after jewelry store. I don’t mean to sound redundant but THE RING HAD TO BE PERFECT! I had to make sure I wasn’t missing anything better to give to my bride and honestly I didn’t find anything that was as good as that ring at the very first jewelry store I went to.
It makes me think how huge that is to do to a lot of things in life. Let me balance and say not everything NEEDS to be perfect. But striving for the best is very important. If you want to deliver your best work or be the best (fill in the blank) or however this idea fits you, then you HAVE to go past “what works”. You have to go past the “good enough”. You even have to go past the “really good” and explore how to make that whatever in your life even better. Or at the very least, find out that there aren’t any better options out there so that you know you landed at the best.
At the end of it all, I eventually went back to that first jewelry store and bought that first ring and proposed like boss!
And after she asked what I was doing…she said yes.