Not too long ago, I wrote a post about getting old and one of my friends left me a comment that I agreed with whole-heartedly:“I'm totally from the If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix It school of thought.”
And I thought to myself, “As am I, Amy. As am I.”
Turns out that I might be wrong. Don’t tell my wife.
Here’s the evidence. You be the jury:
Exhibit A:
My aching desire to “update” Life Before the Bucket, whether that’s through a new layout or a new domain name. I’d like to think it’s “broken”, because I'd always like more people to be reading, but in reality, everything is fine and dandy around here. And if it weren’t, I suspect that you might tell me.
Exhibit B:
My compulsive desire to perfect my father-in-law’s website for his new business, New Hope Therapy. As far as I can tell, everything seems to be in tip-top shape over there. However, I always feel like there’s something more that can be done. A little something to be improved. And trust me, I’m open to any opinions or questions you might have about that site.
Exhibit C:
Only because I was made to tell the “whole truth and nothing but the truth.” Oh, wait… I wasn’t? I guess I’ll confess my sin to you anyway: I’m a compulsive hair checker.
As far as I can tell, my hair serves something like two purposes. Purpose A was to aid in wooing my wife. Check. And Purpose B is, I think, just to fall out, because even my dad was mostly bald by the time he passed away.
For some reason, I still compulsively check it. I even just touched it as I typed it, and I do this because I get nervous that some hair might be out of place or I might be sporting a nice cow-lick without anyone telling me. Even though my hair is serving its purpose, I always want to make it better.
So what’s your verdict? Still believe that I’m old-school in that I don’t want to fix things that aren’t broken? Because lately, my mind has been changed. If I'm capable of improving something that could work better and I don’t, it might as well be broken.
I’m still torn on the issue at times, especially when it comes to road construction, but that’s another rant for another day…
Question: Do you think it is a positive thing to always be striving for improvement? Or do you think that we often lack the ability to be content with what we have? Should we be? Which is the lesser of two evils, or the better of two good?
