You Are Always Doing Your Best

Consider the propositon that you always do your best. As in, "all the time" always. You never do not do your best.

Notice the arguments that are coming up in your mind about this. You are thinking of times when you feel you could have done better. Or perhaps when you counted on someone else and you feel that they let you down. You're doing a great job of doing your best to prove this idea wrong!

I believe the truth is we don't know how to do any differently than our best. For example, even if you consciously decide to hold back from doing something as well as you believe you could do it, you are now doing your best to hold back. In this case, the focus has shifted from the doing of the activity to the regulation of your energy and talent. But you still do your best. If you have a deadline to meet but you feel like procrastinating, your mind will come up with all kinds of creative solutions to help you with your replacement goal of avoiding the work that needs to get done. You see, to look at the results of the work at the deadline is to miss the real issue, that you decided to focus your time and energy on something else.

If all this were true, what practical application would it have? Well, I can think of two that seem promising: first, it is futile to beat yourself up over so-called failures or mistakes. "I should have said ..." "I should have done ..." Nonsense. If you had thought of it, you would have said it or done it. Or else, you avoided remembering to say or do it for very good reasons that are possibly only known to your unconscious mind at present. Or even, you had reached a limit physically, mentally, or emotionally and decided to proceed anyway. But you did your best.

Second, understanding this concept gives you the opportunity to learn things you would never imagine about yourself when you tune out, mail it in, let it slide, etc. Where is it that you are, mentally, when you are not doing what you said you would do? Were you generating mental chatter? Dreaming of an aspect of life as you wish it were? Mulling over a grudge or a percieved injustice? You know, we get so good at hiding from others the fact that we do these things that we begin believing we don't do them ourselves. Nietzsche put it well, "'I did it,' says the memory. 'I could not have done it,' says the pride. Eventually, memory gives in." But these things are clues, valuable clues, to help each of us embrace afresh his or her unique brand of humanity.

After a few months of trying out this way of thinking I felt the muse agitating within and wrote this poem, "There Are No Mistakes"

There's no such thing as a mistake
Mistakes are an illusion
We always do the best we can
In spite of our confusion

Progress on the path of life
Slows when you care 'bout image
If there's no book on what you love
Just scribble down a new page!