To Be Your Best!

My latest idea for the week is to share some of my favourite sayings and write what they mean to me. It's really a writing exercise for me. You may get something out of it - you may not!

I love short phrases. They can convey so much in so few words. By a mere suggestion, they open a series of paths to many different thoughts. Especially when you are prone to thinking about things for hours on end when your legs, heart and mind are engaged in a physical mantra (like cycling, perhaps).

"To be your best is to be good enough"

-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching-

Now, looking at that from a Western perspective, one might be tempted to think that Lao Tzu is saying that we should be satisfied with our current situation. Just try your best and you've done all that you can.

Lao Tzu also says, "To live until you die is to live long enough." It's this quote that led me to think about the first one in a different light. To really live your whole life, to have experienced as many different things as possible, to explore the limits of your body, mind and spirit - THAT is really living.

What I think Lao Tzu is telling me is that I should be trying to be my best at all times in all areas. Be my best. Previously, I have always tried to be the best. That leads to competition and a focus away from what really matters - self-knowledge, self-improvement. I have absolutely no chance of making any changes to the outside world unless I can make changes in myself. Buddha or Jesus (they are mixed in my head these days), talks about changes within leading changes without.

How can I be my best? I have no roadmap, I have no idea of my potential. I feel lost, with no direction. I search for structure - it's no secret that my training provides structure to my whole life. Take away that structure and I start to get highly uncomfortable. Oh, what to do!

Step back.

What is my goal? Best to keep it simple. Start by "living right" and then add "thinking right". What does that mean? For me, it means showing acceptance and kindness first to oneself and then to others.(something that I'm still learning about and find hard to do at times, as I tend to be self destructive)

I really think that acceptance could be the key to unlock happiness and release stress. If I fail I am human. I am still okay. If I make a complete mess of everything, then I am just like everyone else. We make constant errors and mistakes. To expect perfection and constant happiness is a delusion. Things just don't work that way. If I accept that things will tend to crater from time to time (hell, crater all the time), then I am going to be better prepared to deal with whatever rolls my way - ham sandwich or hand grenade!

Am I heading back towards, "just do your best"? Does this mean that nothing really matters? I don't think so. I think that after I have realised that I am flawed, but okay, the next step is to make a total commitment to constant improvement. So being my best is not perfection. Rather it is a total commitment to thinking, being and acting the best - today, right now, this minute.

Not sure if you can see the difference, but it is a major one for me. It is full of tremendous compassion to myself. I acknowledge that I am flawed, but commit to a constant attempt to be my best. My best may, or may not, measure up to your expectations of me. Your best may, or may not, measure up to my expectations of you. However, so long as I know in my heart that I am doing the absolute best I can - right now - there really is not a lot more I can be doing. Very relaxing.

This concept is really interesting to me because what it implies is that we are not on a journey. Rather, we are living right here, right now. Who we are and what we are is linked to the present moment - not a future destination, not what we have achieved in the past.

While "present living", for me, implies a life that is 100% consistent with Christian metaphysics, it is a huge break from much of Christian Dogma. In particular, Catholic Dogma has a huge focus on the sins of the past - both our own, and those of others. Likewise, the focus is normally on "good living" today in order to achieve heaven tomorrow. What if good living today leads to heaven today? And in view of it all, what does heaven mean to you? That is truly a message of hope.

Hope this post makes sense in helping you readers out there!

Yuen