Today’s Daily Stoic writing prompt: Where does my idealism hold me back?

What this is talking about is not being able to settle for anything but the perfect outcome–otherwise known as letting the best be the enemy of the good.

This is antithetical to me. If perfection is within your reach, by all means, go for it. But sometimes that last 5% is just not worth obsessing over, especially if your own 95% is better than most people’s 120%. As I said–if it’s truly within your means, and it means a lot to you–then sure, give it a try. But if you don’t quite make it, or if you find it’s come to dominate your life in an unhealthy way, you may come to understand that it may not be worth the pain, time, cost, or effort.

There are a few things in life where I have achieved some measure of perfection. I had a perfect GPA in high school. That was attainable and achievable, and it did not mean going to extraordinary means. But I’ve done far more things where I have “settled” for excellent, rather than perfect, and more still where “good enough” is more than enough. And those have all been conscious decisions, made after looking at my goals.

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We are now at T minus 71 days for finishing up the Daily Stoic year.

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T-shirt, acquired yesterday. The Russian reads “(Cats) scratch the soul,” which apparently is a figurative way of saying that one is anxious or heartsick.

Today, first day back at CWH. It was quite busy, pretty much right from opening, although the weather scuttled all of our scheduled flights. On the other hand, we discovered there was a very large guest sitting out on the ramp:

What on earth was this massive Russian plane doing in Hamilton? Talking to some of the guys at the museum, it turns out it had arrived on Friday. It’s an Antonov 124, one of the largest transport/cargo planes in the world. One of the guys had a photo of it unloading–its nose actually lifts. We watched it for most of the morning, figuring that given some of the odd things going on in shipping right now, there were stranger things that could be seen. We heard it had arrived by way of Reykjavik. Around 10:30 it was pushed over to the runway, and just after 11 we watched it heave its way into the air, bound for Ireland. Story over…or was it?

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About 45 minutes later, this shows up.

We briefly thought the first plane had returned, but this was clearly a different aircraft–as it turned out, an Ilyushin 76. (Had to look up that spelling!). While I was looking at it from the spot seen here with a fellow tour guide, a guy beside us heard us mention the Antonov and asked when it had left. Turns out the guy was the captain of the aircraft we were looking at, and he was able to fill in a few blanks about why all of a sudden we were overrun by Russian aircraft. Turned out they were carrying shipments bound for the US, but not everyone in their crews had US visas. So they landed in Hamilton and offloaded their cargo for overland transport into the States. He mentioned that they weren’t on any kind of strict schedule, and he apparently decided to pop into the museum to look at the aircraft and grab a bite to eat. We wished him a good stay in Hamilton. (His English, incidentally, was excellent.)

Rest of the day has been spent with D&D, and then working on a vest. I’m ju

Someone shared this on Facebook today. It’s fascinating watching the videos–clearly, some of these artists were chosen because they happened to have videos ready and were never heard from again. Others were, or became, major stars. “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins is in the second hour, and holds up pretty well. The commercials are amazing in their own right.

And here’s something completely new.

I’m finishing up my double-breasted vest as I write this. I’ll post it tomorrow.