goals

Doing Your Best

We are told to do our best, sometimes from our parents, sometimes from our friends and spouses.  These wonderful people in our lives mean the best for us; they are empathizing because we are important them.

But doing our best is really a personal decision on our part, and doing our best will often not bring about the consequences that we want or expect, except for one.  Here are some things that are important to remember about doing your best.

  1.  Doing your best is always worth it.  No matter the situation, no matter your station in life.
  2.  Sometimes your best is not good enough.  This is OK…if it’s your best.  Learn from it and next time your best will be better.
  3. Others may not appreciate the best that you can do.  Doing your best, however, is not for the sake of others.
  4. Your best is an ideal that you will never achieve.  Doing your best is really a virtue, and as such, it is a goal rather than a reality.

So, keep doing your best and know that sometimes, maybe often, you will fail.  But keep trying to raise the bar and just maybe, just maybe you might surprise yourself at what you can achieve.

The Unattainable 

Looking at a mountain and slowly crawling up its magnificient facade by eye; the peak, so far up, and smiling down, from its precipice in the sky; seems to smile and smirk as if to say there is no way you will come to me.
And as you ready yourself, taking long breaths and feeling the tingle in your gut; you busy yourself with tools and toys and thoughts of what you must; the answer, you realize and come to know, is in your thoughts and not what you see.

 
The journey begins one step at a time, one foot, one stone, one rock; you begin the climb and see the sights that the trees down below have blocked; the climb is steep and the rocks are loose and the peak continues to smile.
The days go by, the tiredness heavy, and newness has worn off; your muscles sore, and so alone but the voices in your head they scoff; the morning comes and the pain is fierce, but ahead mile after mile, after mile.

 
Until one day, all hope is gone, the peak it snears and screams; the pain is numb, the cold is deep, and misery is in your dreams; you walk again, your bones are brittle, your desire is all but erased.
Dumb and blind, careless and lost, your adventure is no more; no more pain can cause you harm, there is no voice to implore; but at the top, you’ve made your goal! And now a smile comes across your face.

 
At the peak you sit and eat, and hope and power you feel; the sun shines down and the rocks are warm, your fate it has been sealed; you have conquered your fear and made better your life; explained the unexplainable.
Looking down, the trail is known, and the miles they melt away; you’ve not met your match, you’ve accomplished much no matter what others say; all are proven wrong, and you are honestly proud to have attained the unattainable.

The List

list

Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of getting older is realizing that you are, actually, getting older and realizing the implications of age. This, I understand, is difficult to understand the younger one is. However, I think the lesson learned from this realization is important no matter what age we are. Consider…

One day you receive a letter in the mailbox addressed to you personally. The letter has no return address and is handwritten. You open the letter up anticipating the contents while at the same time nervous, excited, somehow knowing what the letter is. The envelope drops to the ground and you unfold the contents. It is a list. The list, you realize, is a list of your hopes and dreams, your goals and the expectations that you have developed over the course of your life. In short, it is your bucket list. You read the list a bit nervous, a bit excited, as you come across long forgotten dreams and current expectations that you realize you’ve never shared with anyone. You put the list in a drawer, bringing it out to entertain your friends on occasion: telling the story and reliving the moment at the mailbox. Years go by and the paper yellows but does not become brittle. One day you take the list out and realize to your horror that somehow the list is shorter. The thought, “I must be mistaken!” shoots through your mind. This cannot be; lists such as this do not become shorter. But, they do, and your realize this at the same time that you realize your hand is shaking. Instead of pulling out the list to entertain friends, you now hide the list in a box on a shelf in the closet. You cannot face looking at it anymore because you realize that throughout time you have not accomplished the goals, the dreams on the list. You realize that you are getting older, and the list is getting shorter. “How can this be?!” you think. “As I get older, I need to cross out the items on my list!” But you’ve crossed out only a few. The riddle weighs heavy and you reluctantly pull the box out with the list in it. You hesitantly open the box and carefully lay the list out on the table; you unfold the list slowly. You realize when you finally look down that items on the list are slowly fading, right before your eyes. You realize what the list is: it is a list of possible dreams, of possible goals, of possible expectations. It is a list of possibilities and as you grow older that list of possibilities fades.

Although it is difficult to understand and perhaps even more difficult to accept, the list of possibilities in life grows shorter as we grow older. I can only hope that we can realize what is possible and act upon those realizations. I have been told, and have come to believe, that the most difficult step is the first step. Take the first step towards your goals before the list is nothing but a blank and brittle memory.