When Your Best Is Not Good Enough

I came up against something recently that wasn’t so much a new thing, but a pointed reminder of something I knew. Something in the back of my mind that needed to be in the front.

Sometimes your best isn’t good enough. You did all you could do and it just didn’t get you where you thought it would. Two of talent plus Two of effort did not equal the Four of Success.

I know this is true of my writing. I have read books that make me cringe. Because they’re so much better (I’ve also had the reverse experience, but this post isn’t about smugness.)

But I still find words compelling and trudge along. I do my best. Good enough? We’ll see.

You’ve seen those mock posters on facebook “what I do, what I think  I do, what I really do”. It’s like that. You’re doing your best but how it’s perceived or how it all ends up is out of our hands.

There is someone better than you at something somewhere. I’ve had the questionable privilege of meeting someone better than me at just about everything.

And that’s not to say I’m bad at a lot of stuff.

I’m a good mom. But I yell. I forget things. I get tired. I have never joined the PTA. I did teach Sunday School for a bit… My Grandma Smith never yelled. She did make me eat onions and “white gravy” so maybe it evens out on the good enough scale.

I like to garden. But I often forget to spray the stuff to repel the deer.  I’m an erratic waterer. My mother in law is a Master Gardener.  Good thing she lives in Iowa or the pressure would require medication.

The examples are endless. And depressing, so let’s stop.

The thing is I am not very competitive with others so it doesn’t bother me so much that others are better than I am at certain things. But I am very competitive with myself. I want to do MY best. And when I come up against a loss, even though I did my best, it’s hard. It feels unfair. And kinda mean.

It usually takes me a couple days and some chocolate. And then I start up again. Doing my best. And praying it’s good enough.