Doing Your Best

"If you are doing your best, you won't have any time to worry about failure." - H. Jackson Brown.

The first thing I note in this quote is that we have to be "doing".   It doesn't say we can just be wishing, hoping, waiting or trying.  It says we must be doing our best. We must be engaged in something. 

Second, it doesn't define what best is.  It says "your best" and the only one that can measure "your best" is you. Every person is unique. Everyone has their own personal measure of when they are best in a particular area. Even individually, best is not the same in all areas of our life.  One definition for best is "that which is the most excellent, outstanding, or desirable". Anytime you find yourself saying "I can do better" take it as a personal clue you are not performing at your best.  Then step up, do more and enjoy the pleasure of feeling you are outstanding.   

Third, if you are doing your best you cannot be experiencing failure.  Best is defined as "that which is the most excellent, outstanding, or desirable."   Failure is defined as "lack of success" or "omission of expected or required action".   Excellence and lack cannot exist at the same time.  Anytime you are doing your best, by your own definition, you are succeeding.  If you are doing your best you are acting excellent, which means you are performing expected or required action.   

Remember, that the word best is often a comparative term.  Be careful to avoid comparing yourself to others.  As I said, no one can define "your best" but you. No two people can be best at the same thing, but two people can be doing their best in the same area and both be considered excellent.  It is okay for two people to be doing their best and not be at the same level of excellence.  One person, such as a concert pianist,  may have had years of practice, opportunities and skill building experience and his personal best is personally defined at a high level of performance.  The second person, a beginning music student,  may be taking the first steps to developing the skill or talent and his best is exactly what he is presently doing with the learning and practice he now has.

Don't be discouraged by people who say you can never be or be at "your best".  Remember that "you best" is also a measure of where you are at one particular moment.  Being best right now does not mean you cannot or should not improve or change.  The definition of better as "more excellently or effectively" offers the hope.  You may be excellent at what you are doing today.  Tomorrow or the next, with time and practice you may become more excellent and your personal best may reach a new lever.  On the other hand, tomorrow may bring challenges and different circumstances. Your benchmark may shift to a lower level, but still be considered excellent. The track star running on a dry field may have a record of two minutes for today, but his best time may be closer to three minutes tomorrow and still be considered excellent or his best because tomorrow the track was muddy and slippery after the rain,

My encouragement to you is to strive to be your best at whatever you are doing or whoever you are at this time   Don't worry if you do not perform or act as someone else you see or hear about.   Decide each day what is your best for that day, and enjoy being or doing the best you can in any moment.  Look at your accomplishments today.  Remember success and failure cannot coexist. 

Enjoy the Little Things - Now

Enjoy the little things in life…for one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things. (Robert Brault)

I can truly echo this statement, for through my own experiences I have learned the importance of looking for and enjoying the little things as they happen.  We cannot recapture the moments and time moves forward whether we want it to or not.  What we do not appreciate and enjoy now can only be remembered later. 

Even when we know we should be enjoying the little things we do not always do so.  We may be so focused on something else in the moment that we barely react.  A mother, busy tying a shoe for a toddler may offer her cheek for a goodbye kiss from a spouse or another child as they leave, accepting the action as something small and routine for each of them.  The underlying steady love, appreciation and support may not fully be appreciated until later, when the children or spouse are no longer willing or present to share their love on a daily basis.

In our busy, active lives we schedule the activities and appointments that demand our attention or we are afraid may be forgotten.  While these places to be and things to do seem of the most importance, it is really the small things, unwritten, occurring between the lines that end up being the big things, the things remembered. .  Making sure you get the child to the game on time is important, right now, but what he will remember isn’t whether you made it early or late, but rather the talks that occurred during those rides or the ice cream after a loss.   Your daughter won’t remember whether you were late for a parent-teacher conference or a dance lesson but she will remember hearing you express your pride in her for the talents and skills you know she has. 

Sometimes it is our perceptions that hamper us from enjoying the little things.  As a mother, you pick up the crayons and torn crumpled piece of paper with what to your adult eyes appears to be nothing more than scribbles of lines and shapes with no meaning.  To you it is simply another piece of paper to be thrown away, until the little boy comes running in.  He is excited you found his drawing and boisterously explains what the lines, spaces, shapes and colors represent. A small piece of paper changes, with understanding, into his masterpiece for the day, a true work of art to be cherished.

 As our lives change we realize some of the small things we may have taken for granted in the past.   A frazzled mother, surrounded by screaming toddlers racing past her, looks back to a time when they slept peacefully for hours at a time, or forward a few hours to the hope of the quiet after bedtime.  The father who reluctantly played catch with a little boy one night now stands surrounded by the trophies the gift of a few minutes resulted in.  An aging grandparent reminisces about days of cookie covered tables, paper creations and chocolate covered faces as she listens on the phone to a grandchild tell her about his latest school project. 

At times we simply do not appreciate the little things until we recognize that the small things we take for granted are or would be the big things to someone else.  A father complains about how expensive it is to feed and clothe a child until the childless couple next door asks if  he will allow them to be a Secret Friend because they just want to share their love with the children they know and care about.   A mother apologizes for the crayon and sticky fingerprints on the wall  and the toys on the floor until  the visitor she thought she needed to impress begins crying and explains she lost a child to illness and wishes she could experience the wonder of wall art, growth prints and learning objects again. 

Whether small or big, I encourage us all to experience these things now.  Enjoy the moments of your life now, and reflect joyfully on them later.