Liz -

I made an (unpublished) comment on Lifehacker which said, basically, that there are some jobs, like caring for Dennis Quaid's twins, which require perfection. A lot of jobs don't. The reason that people strive for perfection is to keep their jobs in the face of younger and cheaper competition from the community and from abroad.

If a Parisian or Canadian loses a job, are they out of health care options? No - there's a social safety net which is designed to catch the less-than-competent or terminal slacker elements in society. Everybody else is more Marxist ("from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs"). They pay for it in taxes. We're stuck in a very nasty Protestant and Puritan life ethic, and we pay for it in enslavement to the ideal of perfection.

What makes our lot in life worse is that we've become addicted to credit to an extent much greater than our European counterparts. When's the last time you heard a regular middle-class American family talk about their place in the country where they spend their weekends? The French and Italians have been using their spare money for decades to improve their weekend retreats.

Making capital improvements to structures on properties keeps local labor employed, and use of the properties gives additional incentives to local farmers. Luckily for them, our Euro brethren have only comparatively recently jumped into the credit card and "gimme" culture.

It is a very sad truth that money and perfection trump balanced lives most of the time. Today's good lives are being led by many retirees because they have their safety nets of Social Security, Medicare, and for many, a private pension to complement their the money they put aside for this time of their lives.

So, three cheers for perfection! No, make that four cheers so they don't outsource all the cheering to India!

Hey, your hair looks great...I haven't digested that article yet.