BETTER

I am sure this notion originated somewhere in my childhood and took up residence in my mind.  It has remained a welcome tenant, most of the time.  I hear the words from my parents and teachers early on, “You know better.” And “You can do better.”

I worked and studied in order to learn more and do better. Each of my four careers, over a span of 60+ years, were devoted to helping people and organizations become better versions of themselves. 

I.  Luis Hernandez was a young man in his late 20’s who, with his younger brother, walked 12 days and crossed the southern border of the U.S. illegally when he was 15 years old.  I never learned much about his early life in Mexico but rest assured it motivated him to want a better life north of the border. 

Luis worked for us for several years when we lived at The River House on the Chama River, a mile south of Abiquiu, New Mexico. His story is but one of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living and working in the United States.  Is it somehow ironic that 20 years later, we crossed the southern border to live in Mexico?  Suffice to say we did it easily with the appropriate documents.

Our housekeeper, Imelda, was also illegal and could not go back to visit her sick mother because she would be unable to return legally and did not want to pay a “coyote” $5,000 to get her back illegally again.  Having employed illegal immigrants, I was guaranteed not to ever have a political position which is fine.   I know immigration is a knotty issue without a quick or easy solution.

When Luis fixed something on our “farm” he usually said it was now “more better.”  I finally learned how to say it in Spanish, “más mejor”.  While that may sound redundant or grammatically incorrect, I grew to love the phrase, and the smile that accompanied the finished repair, or replacement. When I helped him haul a mobile home up a mountainous road to a mesa with my truck, where we placed it for his residence, I looked at Luis and said, “Yes, it is now “more better.”  We laughed together. When we moved away from The River House, we lost touch with Luis although we heard he was still working for some friends who lived nearby.

II. It might have been Atul Gawande’s second book, Better: A Surgeons Notes On Performance (2007) that ignited my further thinking about what the word  “better” implies, especially in the arena of health care and medicine, and for that matter, in any profession.  His other three books were welcome additions to my library. The first, Complications: A Surgeon’s Note on an Imperfect Science (2002). The third: The Checklist Manifesto (2009) a fascinating account that also shows how to make things better.  And then the blockbuster, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters In the End. (2014). It was aimed at making things better toward the end of life.  Atul has dedicated his life to making things better and his TED talk is legendary.

“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door" is a phrase attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson in the late nineteenth century. The imperative invitation is actually a misquotation of the statement:

“If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.”

That phrase “build a better mousetrap” turned into a metaphor about the power of innovation and is frequently taken literally, with more than 4,400 patents issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office for new mousetraps, with thousands more unsuccessful applicants, making them the “most frequently invented device in U.S. history.”   I never considered building a better mousetrap although I have been trying to design and build better in different contexts for a long time.

Here are a few more thoughts.

1.   My word for one year was “better” and I tried applying it consciously where and when possible.

2.   When someone asks the proverbial, “How are you?” rather than the automatic response of “ Good” or “Fine” I often say, “Better.”  You should hear or see some of the responses I get.

3.   Maya Angelou’s quote resonates with me: “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”

4.   Think of all the people and their efforts to make things better – safer, healthier, cleaner, quieter, smarter, easier, cooler or warmer, and the list goes on.

5.   Better is comparative, best is superlative and for now I’m grateful to “know, be and do better.”

6.   What are you doing and what could you do to make things better, not just make better things?  Faster and bigger are not necessarily better.

7.   Better applies to relationships, health, living conditions, work, writing and many more activities and skills.  Figure out which you want to work on, if any. I believe I can become a better as a writer so I keep practicing.

8.   Sometimes we can make something look, taste, smell, sound or feel better if we’re willing to make the effort and put in the time.

9.   Just as perfect is the enemy of good, best is the enemy of better.

10.     While there may always be room for improvement is there a time when good enough is good enough?

III. Many of us grew up with the philosophy, and in a culture, that says whatever we are doing, whatever we are making, could be better.  Some of it may stem from (TQM) Total Quality Management which can be traced back to early 1920s.  That is when statistical theory was first applied to product quality control.  Much of that was based on continuous feedback. Some of us get feedback frequently, some ask for it and some  actually welcome it.

This concept was further developed in Japan in the 40s led by Americans, such as W. Edwards Deming, Joseph M Juran and Armand V. Feigenbaum. Those principles were applied mostly in the world of business and manufacturing and many of the practices leaked into other areas of management as well such as education, health care and government. There have definitely been improvements in those areas but few people are satisfied with the results because they are just not good enough, at least not yet.  Question is will they ever be good enough?  That follows the maxim that there is always room for improvement.

On the home front, many parents encourage children to work harder in order to do better whether in school or in a job.  The idea is to get promoted and reach a higher level of achievement.  That is supposed to bring greater rewards and satisfaction although many are now questioning some of the assumptions and techniques and finding ways to work better, not just harder. 

So when is good enough good enough?  When can you let it go, put it away and be satisfied that whatever you have done was a result of your best effort and it has either met or exceeded your realistic expectations?  At the end of the day, what’s done is done.  I can’t tell you how many times I revised this post because I wasn’t counting.  Is it better now that it was?  I hope so. I learn from experience, and I do not live under a cloud that it is not good enough.  If I believe it is good enough, then it is, regardless what someone else says or believes.  We need the confidence and trust in ourselves first, others will follow.  This post is good enough for me, at least for now.  I’ll set my old mousetrap later.

When we make a commitment to making things better we will inevitably run into challenges but those are opportunities waiting for solutions. 

May you find ways to make your life and that of others better in whatever ways you can.