Day 313: Doing Our Best

Not every day is going to go the way you expect it to go. That is truly the crux of life, no single day goes perfectly as expected. We must learn to deal with each day as it comes, we cannot ignore the fact that life comes to us in chunks. How thankfully we should be to only have to handle one second at a time.

If you looked back over your day today, what would you say about it? Did it go as expected? Did anything go as expected? I imagine you didn't quite get everything you needed to get done done and there was just something about the day that you hadn't planned on. It happens that way, every single day of our lives.

And if that is truly the case, why do we even both trying to plan it out in advance? If life is really composed of days filled with unexpected outcomes, then what is the use of trying to figure out what to do ahead of time? Planning isn't useless is it? In life having a plan can be our only comfort sometimes, it pains us to think that not even a plan will get us through.

However, I'm here to tell you that a plan is not useless. Just because life doesn't go the way we thought it would, doesn't mean we should just give up on planning altogether. I cannot imagine the world of chaos we would all sink into if we gave up all notions of a plan. We would have no direction, no path to walk on, no passion to chase after. We would be wondering around aimlessly, taking whatever life dished out at any point in time.

No, a plan in life is essential. But life isn't about fulfilling your plan perfectly. It cannot be done, so we must give up on the notion of perfection. There will be days where we get so much accomplished and we really feel like we are succeeding at everything we ever hoped for. But then there are days, where things fall apart, nothing goes right, and random things pop up trying to claim your attention.

Perfection is a silly idea that must be given up in order to have a happy life. We must take each day as it comes with our plan in hand. When we have steps laid out ahead of time, we have a direction we know we must walk towards, it gives us a starting point. Then comes the twists a turns, we don't expect. We must take them gracefully.

Everything that comes to us unexpected, can be an amazing opportunity. Never lay aside a roadblock as simply that. It might be something you never imagined it could be, such as opportunities for growth or amazing memories. Life will throw things at us constantly, we must learn to be flexible when it comes to living. Accept that no day is perfect and therefor we can only do one thing.

The only thing we'll ever be able to do in life that is perfect, is our best. Our best is the most perfect we will ever be. If we can do that much, we won't have to worry about wasting any day of our lives. Sometimes our best will look incredible and some days it will look like simply having the energy to get out of bed. Understand what your best is each day and how it looks differently from yesterday, then do just that. Do your best, that's all you can ask of yourself.

Until Next Time,
Lillian Merritt