You keep meaning to have the new couple over for a Shabbos seudah, but in your head that meal already comes with a tablecloth you don't own and a meat course you don't have time to make, so you wait for the week the apartment finally looks the way it's supposed to, which is really just a polite way of never inviting them at all.

That old line, usually credited to Voltaire, that perfect is the enemy of good, sounds like a needlepoint pillow until you notice how much of your week it's quietly running.

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Good has a date on the calendar, while perfect has been coming soon since the day you moved here.

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Recognize any of these?

• Not cleaning the kitchen because you can't get to the whole house
• Skipping the walk because you don't have a full hour
• Not texting back because you can't write the perfect long reply
• Not cooking because you're missing one ingredient
• Leaving the last boxes packed because you don't know where things go

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The fix

Aim for the B+ on purpose, so you buy the cake instead of baking it, order the album tonight with whatever photos are on your phone, and have the couple over for cholent in the morning, because the smaller and rougher you let it be, the faster it stops being a someday and becomes something you've already done.

And you already do this beautifully without noticing, every time you pull a Shabbos meal out of 3 things in the freezer or get the kids to gan fed on a morning that fell apart. This is the same move, made on purpose, in the places where waiting for perfect keeps talking you out of starting.

So invite the couple this week, cake from the makolet and all, with the laundry rack right where it always is, and let the good version be the one everyone gets to enjoy, because I promise it beats the perfect one you've been keeping to yourself.

What's the good-enough version you've been putting off? Pick one this week and do the B+ on purpose.

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