doing our best . . .
by mulberryshoots
Do you feel down and out sometimes? Even after you’ve made things for other people, helped your spouse when he’s wet and cold from blowing snow for the second blizzard in two weeks, watered the plants, sweeping up the dried leaves and feeding the canary fresh seed and water?
Are you ever hard on yourself when you read about what others have done, especially if it’s something you would like to have done yourself? Well, here’s an antidote to all that:
The fourth (and final) agreement in Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, “The Four Agreements” is “Always Do Your Best.” He writes:
Just do your best–in any circumstance in your life. It doesn’t matter if you are sick or tired, if you always do your best there is no way you can judge yourself. And if you don’t judge yourself there is no way you are going to suffer from guilt, blame, and self-punishment. By always doing your best, you will break a big spell that you have been under.
Fine. I think it’s easier to always do your best than it is to stop judging yourself. So, maybe a change in emphasis to always doing our best is to also remember just not to judge ourselves all the time. That might be the key to happiness, don’t you think?
Amen.
mulberryshoots 
Thank you for that! I have Don Miguel Ruiz’s book but have not looked at it in a while. This is such a true thing and so common for us to listen to that critical voice that is our self -doubt and our punisher. This book is beautifully written and has such spirit-filled simplistic advice. Ruiz’s book sheds light upon self-limiting beliefs that keep us from joy and contribute to our needless suffering.
Thank you for that reminder! I’m going to pull it off the shelf and absorb it once more.
Glad to remind ourselves (often) that we (mostly women?) tend to be hard on ourselves even when we’re doing our best.
We do tend to be hard on ourselves, but that is because we want what is best for everyone, including ourselves. We desire perfection. I beat myself up all the time. i love this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson (I had this on a teenage years bulletin board, it was good advice then, too) “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” Again, we have to remind ourselves to just do our best.
Perfection doesn’t help: trying for it, or measuring ourselves against it. Where does it come from? If only we could do our best and be done with it each day–as RWE says so well.