“We have to do the best we can.  This is our sacred human responsibility.”

– Albert Einstein

Once again, I find myself beginning with the words of Albert Einstein.  Sometimes it amazes me that he and I agree on so many topics.  I guess great minds must think alike, right?  This is exactly what I don’t want to write about today — holding ourselves to the high standards of performance demanded by another person’s accomplishments.

I imagine that each of us could write a list of people we admire and the things they have done that deserve our admiration; and I also imagine that the things we admire are those that we see as being beyond our own abilities.  My own list would include favorite writers, artists, and humanitarians, because I see in their accomplishments something that I would like to achieve.  Their examples stand before me and encourage me to stretch my own limits and strive to be the best I can be.

“Do your best.”  How often in our lifetimes have we heard those words?  Our parents said them, our teachers said them, and the list goes on.  Hopefully, by the time we reach adulthood, we have learned to say them to ourselves.  As we say the words and look to others for examples of achievement, what happens too often has nothing to do with being encouraged.  How often do we look at someone like Albert Einstein, admire his accomplishments, and then say, “well, he was Albert Einstein — I’m not smart enough to do the things he did.”  We see his best as something so far out of our reach that it seems futile to continue to strive for any accomplishments of our own.  We look at the work of a great artist and become inspired to take up a brush and some paint and place our own beauty on a canvas; and then we evaluate the result in light of the master’s work and stop painting.

Too often we confuse doing our best with achieving perfection.  Maybe it comes from message received in  childhood  – you need to try harder; you are not working up to your full potential;  you need to do your best — delivered as criticism rather than encouragement by adults who couldn’t see that we had delivered our best effort.  We must always remember that we are works in progress and that life is a process that moves from moment to moment and from day to day.

Robert Browning wrote this:

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

If we truly do our best in each moment that we have, and if doing our best means reaching just a little bit beyond what we are able to accomplish in that moment, we will continue to evolve and grow.  We don’t need to be perfect.  We don’t need to be as good as another person or measure ourselves against their standards.  If I think of the people on my list, I can’t imagine one of them who would have been satisfied with the accomplishments that I admire.  It’s all about the striving and growing — not about arriving at an end.  Let’s not limit ourselves with self-doubt.  Let’s not set tangible goals based on the achievements of others.  Rather, let us bring all that we have to our lives each day and simply do our best.  The results might be surprising.

Whose list might you be on one day?