No, Perfect Is Better Than Done

by Deepansh Khurana

Every morning, or sometimes in the day, if the morning has been chock-full of demands of attention and time from the world, I set out to fix the sheets on the bed. It is a rather painstaking process that needs my utmost attention. Like an engineer overseeing a construction site—what with all the debris and other wastefulness left behind from the day before—I assess the case and make a decision. I choose if I ought to replace the sheets just yet or if they could carry on for another day. This is, like all decisions, informed by tonnes of factors, including but not limited to the measure of my laziness, the absurd expectations of the day, the general state of my health, and the right moment when motivation strikes. Of course, this is not a moment of exciting eureka, rather simple drudgery and the onerous banality of the day-to-day.

Once the decision is made, I drag the pillows and a few plushies brought by the courtesy of new love—a touch of colour in the beige and olive, grey and navy palette of my life—onto the rug beside the bed. If I am changing a sheet, I drag it out too, and it often turns into a sort of tug-of-war if a corner has its hold on it. The pillow covers come off, too. But regardless, when I begin sliding a new sheet onto the bed, I always unfurl it from the same place. I find myself at the base of the bed’s breadth, and I stand there and fluff it up into the air until it spreads as evenly as butter on the warmest toast known to man, like the enthused handloom retailer whose shop I used to spend hours in as a child owing to my mother’s penchant to not budge on a price. He had a certain flair to how he showed clothing and other kinds of fabric alike. And as a result, he is still remembered. The way he moved his ring fingers and the way he laid down the fabric as widely as he could, almost like a dance, almost as if he were some great shaman conducting an obscure ceremony, almost as if it were all a little bit of magic and some sort of skill. He had it down to a science. I believe that is how I unfurl the sheets, or at least, that is how I try.

Now, of course, the apartment is made for hobbits, as apartments in big cities are often designed for us to rein our dreams in, and so the bed is pushed to the edge of the wall on one side to maximise what is, in my opinion, the bare minimum space to walk about. Yet, the sheet is spread halfway, and such is life, so there cannot be a lament or complaint here. I assay that the sheet is roughly equal on all edges, even the one that meets the wall. Then, I get to work from the headboard, the easiest bit. I tuck the sheet in as tight as I can, making it as taut as a field of grass, as a yard trimmed proper to show the neighbours that you are on top of your life and affairs, and then I move on to the sides that are out in the open. The left edge is easy, but for the bottom, where I unfurled the sheet from, I have to lift the mattress each time, which undoes some of the work I have done already, but to do things right, we must often trace our steps. This has been a consistent learning for me in life, and so, this does not dissuade me from my undertaking. It then comes onto the walled-off edge, and I push my fingers in, and often, it cuts onto the cuticle when they get stuck just right. And to be honest, and not to blame any side, this process has chipped enough nails for me to have stopped a long time ago. Then, I align the pillows and put the plushies in the exact places they should be—the dog in the middle, the penguin on top of the dog, and the mushroom on the other side of the second pillow. Then, I spread the duvet over the latter three-fourths of the bed. And I gently let it drape the bed like some sort of regal spread fit only for royalty, or perhaps, a rather swanky and unaffordable hotel. Then, I brush my hand over it and fold it to a third of its own visible length and tuck it on the sides, prim and proper.

I reckon, I could avoid this ordeal every day. I could do it without any love in my heart. I could do it without the meticulous detail, without the factory-like process, without the proficiency of the finest housekeeping employees to have ever existed. I could even leave it undone, for I have to sleep in it, too! Why do I bother? Because I believe we are living in a plague of abject mediocrity in all things, and this, I must rebel against, quietly. I have talked to friends over caffeine, and I have talked to them over alcohol, and to see platitudes and maxims blurted over and over, to see the never-ending barrage of posters on walls of the finest cafes, to see all sorts of philosophy converge onto the bottom line of getting things done, whatever the hell that means. The other morning, walking to get breakfast, I passed by another establishment, one of many eateries where we splurge on food we do not sit quietly to enjoy. I peeked in and saw yet another poster. It read:

"Done is better than perfect."

And I thought to myself.

Deepansh Khurana

Deepansh is a writer based in India. His work explores the nuances of everyday existence and finding meaning in the mundane.

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