This book is intended to be a wonderful little gift for underachievers everywhere, as well as for those striving toward underachievement. It teaches us that although we are all taught to give 110 percent and be the best at everything, this is neither healthy, achievable, nor is it a recipe for happiness. This book is for anyone who feels overworked, overdriven and overstressed. It offers humorous but true advice for understanding that “good enough” is good enough.

The objective of the cover design was to capture the essence of the book (funny and matter of fact) while creating a gift-worthy package, and to do this without overachieving. As overachievers ourselves, the editor and I struggled together to shape the “perfect underachievement.” The harder we tried, the less we hit the mark—a truly paradoxical process. The final cover was born when we took a lesson from the book and dropped everything except happy mistakes and beautiful accidents, including the title’s “bad” line break.

I feel guilty recognizing this cover. It seems contrary to the message. Oh, well.