Good Enough Isn't

When is good enough … good enough? Howard Stern spoke out this past week on America’s Got Talent (which should be America Has Talent) and defined the difference between good enough and good, voting against a contestant who, Howard clarified, would be an okay lounge singer, but not good enough to compete against the better, more talented, candidates in a talent show. The other panelists want to coddle, to support, to ooh and ahh over the mediocre performers, rather than wait to be blown away by the best. When it’s a huge pot of gold at the end of a contest rainbow, not just anyone deserves to be there or to win. We used to say, “May the best man win,” but today, it seems that everyone deserves to win something for doing not much of anything.

This “good enough is good enough” mentality is being revealed more and more as competitive TV shows crowd the airwaves. In Opening Act, a panel of entertainment industry movers and shakers watch videos on YouTube and select their favorite musical performance to open for a famous concert performer. This past week’s contestant, a 16-year-old singer/songwriter with her own garage band, lamented that she’s wanted this all her life (she taught herself guitar when she was 11) and has worked so hard for so long (5 years) that she really deserves this opportunity to showcase her talent. She did a good enough job for a 16-year-old garage band singer/songwriter with no vocal training and limited performance experience, but there are thousands of other talented singers who are much better and “really deserve” a break, too.

The winner of Design Star, Danielle, is also disappointing because she is the contestant who consistently failed to complete her design challenge each week, but squeaked through because someone else did worse than she. In the final design challenge, her competitor Brittany (who I just discovered lives in the Valley and has a design studio here) did a more finished, polished room that spoke to the family, while the winner apparently provided more specific information about the process of decorating the room, information good enough to win her own show on a TV network. The judges assured all twelve of the original contestants that “everyone here is a winner,” but that’s not true: one person won her own design show and the others return home with shoulda, woulda, coulda stories to share.

Ditto the recent winners on Cupcake Wars: those who do better than the worst cupcake baker move on, while the winner is not the one who provides incredible finished cupcakes, but the baker who screws up less than the other contestants. When this show began, the bakers not only made delicious, unique, interesting cupcakes, but their decorations were spectacular and reflected the theme of each week's competition. This season, the cupcakes aren’t that good, an endlessly boring repeat of the same old/same old favorites. Even the viewers can see that a fondant cut-out on top of a pile of buttercream icing is not a decoration, but a desperate last-minute attempt not to have a naked cupcake! Will there be a week when there is no winner of the $10,000.00 prize because there is no best? That’s a lot of money to give to “good enough" and lowers the performance standard for the contestants who follow.

On the cooking channel, a contest for the next network Food Star recently concluded. Again, a dozen began and one won a spot in the fall line-up. This time, however, when the judges were asked to eliminate a contestant to create the final three, they refused to do so because all of the chefs were “so good” that the judges could not make a decision, a manipulation that seemed to favor the judges' star contestant, Marti, who consistently mismanaged her time, as well as her intended recipes, and winged it through the eight weeks of competition, while other, better chefs were eliminated. Then, for the first time, the show asked the viewers to select the winner by voting online or by telephone. Happily, the public voted for the underdog, the guy who took risks, who did his thing (he fried fish bones!), rather than pander to the panelists and select Marti, who may have been good enough for the judges, but, for the public, wasn't, and the best man won.

I admire the Bachelorette for sending “good enough” Ari home. Ari is a nice guy, but he isn’t the best man for Emily. It is difficult to explain why one is okay and the other so much better, especially when it results in hurt feelings, but why settle for second best? I watched the home viewer winner of a day on Live with Kelly and all I could think was, “Is this the best they could do?” He was obnoxious, so overly gay as to be an offense to gay men, and he delighted in completely taking over the opening dialog, as well as the rest of the show. I thought the show was looking for the best viewer to be the guest host, not someone who may be good enough (and I almost want to finish that sentence with “because he’s gay.”).

I admire Ryan on The Glee Project: his approach is that if one of the contestants doesn’t have the talent, the drive, and the stamina to win the contest this week, s/he is cut from the competition. This week, Abraham got the axe, even though he came back onto the stage after the final performances to explain that he wasn’t making excuses, but … a whine that Ryan interrupted to clarify: “I don’t believe you. A person who says he isn’t making excuses is making excuses.” Well said, Ryan, and right to the point. You may have been good enough last week, Abraham, but you weren’t good this week, so pack your bags and head back home.

After all, we don't allow everyone who wants to compete in the Olympics to do so: we only take the best of the best athletes to compete against the best that the rest of the world has to offer. When an Olympian says s/he has wanted this all my life, s/he has been training for their entire lives for a chance to compete and qualify for the Olympics. Before they are selected to be on the Olympic team, they compete against the best athletes in their field of expertise -- not against anyone who wants to suit up and show up! To be the best, you have to beat the best.

We have become so accepting of good enough that we are losing our ability to know the best! At the top of my favorite novels list is Harper Lee’s classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, which also features my all-time favorite character, Atticus Finch. In Atticus’s famous courtroom defense of Tom Robinson, he explains that “We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe—some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they’re born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others—some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men” (CH. 20).

For some reason, we have forgotten that we are uniquely different from the moment of conception. I am much better at some things than other people, and not nearly as good at many things as other people. There is a hierarchy of bad, so-so, good, better, best and we rank somewhere within those parameters, a recognition of the reality of being human. We cannot continue to lower our standards of excellence so everyone can be awesome, amazing, fabulous, outstanding, legendary, heroic and/or earn a 4.0 gpa or even be good enough; instead, we need to maintain our expectation of excellence and then encourage each individual to strive to reach it, as well as to accept the reality that many won’t ever be the best, but maybe only good enough, and, sometimes, baldly bad.

Good enough isn’t, so if you cannot become better, step aside and let the person who can do the job better, the person who is the best at doing whatever it is, do it.