I recently had lunch with someone I hadn’t seen in a long time. She talked about some difficult times she’d recently endured and wondered aloud how she’d made it. Looking back, it seems like a lot, she said. A light bulb went off in my head because I suddenly got it – despite the difficultly, she’d been at her best, and that's how people get through their biggest challenges.
I’d wondered similar things before, trying to understand resilience. What’s the secret ingredient? What allows someone to walk into the fire and emerge on the other side, scarred and charred, yet ready to move forward, to rebuild and restart, to share their experiences and help others? Like most things I’ve figured out, it seems obvious in hindsight. People at their best can overcome anything. I’ve seen enough evidence, in both myself and in others, to wonder if somewhere in these examples hides a fundamental truth about humanity.
I've come close to reaching this conclusion in the past. I’d once thought people endured by merely trying their best, knowing they could sit down at the end of the day and say – well, I gave it everything, there’s nothing left, I tried my best. But the difference, the reason why trying your best doesn’t always work, is that when you try your best, you focus on change, and by looking into the future you lose sight of the present. Instead of applying your personal passion, your inner capabilities, or your unique purpose to the moment, you look for activity that has immediate impact or outside validation. You try to change situations rather than giving them time and space to grow in the embrace of your light and energy. In a crisis, being present to the moment is a huge part of it and it often requires a full commitment. Trying to change the situation is often detrimental to our limited energy, the effort distracting us from the moment and pulling attention away from where it has immediate, urgent need.
I’m certain that being your best is always better than trying your best, even if this leads to some initial incompetence, ineffectiveness, or discomfort. It’s always difficult to do something new, something outside your expertise or comfort zone, and each time you say the wrong thing or act the wrong way you’ll want to go back to familiar behaviors. Each setback makes us all think the same thing – there’s no time for this, no time for a learning curve, it’s a crisis! But I think this is exactly the opposite of how we should think. When there is a crisis, the crisis is the only thing, and there is no time for anything else. The day might come and go, bringing little to do, and you might feel anxiety about having done nothing. But that’s precisely the point – having done nothing means you were ready to answer the call, to bring your full presence when it was needed, and on that particular day, in that particular moment, your best simply wasn’t needed. You are all the more prepared to step up the next day.
Another similar thought I’d had in the past was that people persevered by doing their best. Like trying your best, doing your best has an almost confusing similarity to being your best. Doing your best is distinguished by an inner focus that comes naturally to a certain type of person. The internal drive feeds the external action. I’ve seen this approach in practice plenty of times, often in a work context – I like coming to work because it gives me something to do, something to focus on. People like having things to do, to be busy, and I don’t mean leisurely distraction. The chance to work on a craft, to achieve tangible results, or to contribute meaningfully to larger missions, these opportunities are enough to get people out of bed, week to week and month to month, no matter what the mundane obstacles of the day. This is a very healthy approach because most obstacles don’t merit our time or attention. Knowing how to get up and get on is a valuable life skill.
But in a difficult or challenging time, in the midst of a crisis, it’s different. The focus that enables us to overcome or ignore minor obstacles starts to work against us when we ignore a real problem that deserves our attention. No matter how much we accomplish when we do our best, at some point there is a pause or a break, and in that moment everything we’ve pushed to the back comes rushing forward to fill the void. Eventually, we’re forced to confront these obstacles, and we do so depleted energy because we've wasted so much of it ignoring problems and working on other things. In fact, it’s probably being on empty that enables the confrontation – we don’t have the energy to continue avoiding the fight.
Trying and doing are very similar in themselves but I think there is one key difference. When we try our best, we generally look forward and try to change an outcome. Failure is inevitable if you don’t try. On the other hand, doing our best is looking backward, a full immersion into the known preventing all other considerations. This difference seems critical, past versus future being about as opposite as life gets, but in their difference lies a fundamental similarity. By focusing on past or future, both ignore the present, and this ignorance is why being your best sounds right to me. Don't just try your best, because the future is uncertain. Don't just do your best, because you throw away the possibility of getting better. Be your best, because that’s all you can be, and all there is. We are essentially presence, no more and no less, and when you can be your best you contribute the most you can to the present situation and always make the most of every moment.
