Best?

A repeating theme in the back of my head for a great long time has been, what the heck constitutes one's best? I'm a long-time penitent at the altar of perfection, and coming from that perspective, there really is little which could constitute one's best.

Sure, every once in a long while, you nail something so well that you know no one could ever accomplish that task with a greater level of excellence. A really serious problem comes about, though, if you take that once-in-a-blue-moon episode on as your standard of performance.

The crisis is a simple one: if you cannot find satisfaction and happiness in your life somewhere between dereliction and perfection, you have made a miserable experience the likely outcome.

For me, the way to think about it which helps me emerge from that all-or-nothing mindset is the recognition that life is a marathon, not a sprint. Yes, there will be times when we are called upon, be it by our own internal drive or by someone else's emergency, to give all we possibly can give for a short period of time. We seem, as a species, to have enough grace to come through in a pinch. In a crisis, people pull together to get everyone safe and to help those who were harmed the most in the event.

The recent huge tornado which devastated a small town of a few thousand in Colorado is a good example. Within days, hundreds of people from all over Colorado, and some from other countries, even, had flocked to Windsor to help.

All of us are capable of this response, and I dare say most will be called upon at some point in their lives to come through, like it or not.

But what about our regular, day-to-day lives? You know, that life where it is not surprising to find yourself cut off in traffic by someone who then flips you off? That's one I have never quite figured out. That sense of entitlement above and beyond any limit which normal folks place on themselves whenever they reach another person's outer boundary? It's the opposite of that gracious response I was talking about.

It is just that type of response which, in much less-dramatic fashion, provides the push-back we actually need to avoid an obsession with doing things perfectly. Now, I'm not talking to all of you, I know. We don't all have this same thing going on that I do, but enough people I know share this sense of needing to do things better than just barely okay. A whole lot better.

Okay. So, if you cannot be perfect, and you cannot be a slob (most of us don't want the consequences of that), how do you know when you have done your best?

Here's my answer. If you have a different one, or a different take on the same one, please comment and 1) straighten me out, or 2) join me in rejoicing that there is an answer.

For me, it is a matter of going for the task with all I've got, and then stopping when I get a sense, a simple knowing, that "that's enough." It really happens like that, as if another voice is chiming in, in quotes.

Here's a simple example. My wife, darling soul that she is, does the dishes at night, usually after I have long disappeared to bed. In the morning, when I am getting ready for work and she is snoozing, I put away as much of the collection of pots, pans, spatulas, and other cooking implements left drying in the kitchen as I can easily accommodate. I usually don't put everything away, but I do take into consideration what she can easily do and not do, and do my best (Aha! There's that phrase!) to help with the "not do" parts.

And then, I go about my business, knowing the 'put stuff away' segment of her morning will be a bit easier for my efforts.

Perfect? Not hardly, as the perfect guy would have done the dishes in the first place. I'm not going to go into how this all works in my house, as there are chores I do which might not be considered typical Man Chores, and my lovely wife is perfectly capable of declaring any arrangement she finds unfair to be just that. So, don't bother with comments which are off-topic. Remember: the topic is, what is your best?

Just yesterday, as I was finishing making my oatmeal for breakfast, I thought about how I was not doing my best in this very arena, of putting things away in the morning.

This loops us around to the question again.

Yesterday, I thought to myself, "Hold it, there, buster! I did plenty this morning, and I'm happy to consider this a best-effort situation as I evaluate my performance." (sadly, I sometimes talk to myself just this strangely)

So, we come down to two different scenarios, and two different levels of performance.

Scenario Emergency: We do heroic things like lift cars off of children or raise $10,000 in a week for a person who needs an operation.

Scenario Every-Day Life: We go one step beyond what we need to do, and we do it because it makes us feel good. It's not heroic, but we are willing to do it every single day for the next 50 years.

For me, both of these scenarios qualify as one who is doing one's best. I'm one of those Scenario Every-Day Life guys. I bring my next-door neighbor's paper up from the street to his front door every morning because he is older and less able than I. It is such a little thing it would not merit mention, but it is exactly the kind of thing which I mean to describe.

My best is defined, by me, as doing all I can on a repeatable basis. After all, I want to feel like I am doing my best most of the time, and since I know I am, I need to carefully define it so it is understandable. I have that whole, right-brain, left-brain discussion inside my own head to facilitate, you know?

Please do let me know what this little thought-dump brings up for you.