Is Everyone Really Doing Their Best?

It’s been hard for me to accept that moment-by-moment I’ve been doing my best. Not that I can’t to do better in the future. If I keep writing, there’s a chance my writing will improve. But right now, at this moment, I am writing my best blog. I’m doing my best as much as I wish I was doing better.

There is peace in this moment of self-acceptance. It’s an elusive moment, but with practice I can keep coming back to it. But what about everyone else. What about the people who disappoint me, who keep me waiting – I hate to be kept waiting – are they doing their best too?

I’m trying to wrap my head around that one. The person who’s keeping me waiting is doing her best too. When I think that, I have to smile. She’s doing the best she can, and in this moment, I’m appreciating her effort. What’s the point of being angry at someone who’s doing their best. Why not be grateful?

Apparently, there a hard-to-learn lesson here. I keep relearning it. The first time may have been on the South Beach adolescent inpatient unit. When I arrived there, began working with hospitalized kids, many who’d been abused, I found so many staff – all doing their best – striving to save these children from their parents. I saw it then. Those parents were doing their best too. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that evil parents existed somewhere, but none of the parents we were working with were trying to harm their kids. Seeing that changed the way we worked with families.

When we got to building our network of charter schools, I learned the lesson again. We hired mostly brand-new teachers, young, inexperienced. Many came to us without a lot of teaching skill, but every one was doing her best. By looking at skill deficits as opportunities for growth rather than as black marks, we build schools where teachers loved to work. Our students – most of whom had been failing to thrive in traditional public schools – graduated and went on to college.

It’s a lesson I keep learning. And it turns out that it’s a lesson that – for me at least – is hardest to learn with the people who are closest to me. I don’t like to be kept waiting. And yet I’ve grown more patient with “bad” restaurant service. They’re doing the best they can. They’re not making me wait for my coffee to irritate me. Maybe too many people called in sick today. Short-staffed, over worked. Or maybe the waiter’s kid is sick. Maybe his mother’s in the hospital.

Harder for me than the waiters I barely know, even if I’m a regular, are the people I’m closest to. Everyone is doing their best. Just as I am. Sometimes my best falls short. I run out of patience when I wish didn’t. Damn it. I’d been trying to do better. So disappointing. Still, it was my best. I wasn’t trying to get frustrated.

Not just me. Others too. Everyone. No one wanted to get impatient with me. There’s a good chance they too are disappointed in themselves. They too are doing the best they can. I’m smiling. Thank you for doing your best.