Doing Your Best

I once read a book where the main character's mother was cold and emotionally unavailable because she couldn't handle very much emotional stress. Most people would condemn that mother for not giving her son what he needed. I think that while there may be some validity to that criticism, it is not entirely the mother's fault. Maybe, the way her body and mind worked, prevented her from being able the process emotions like most other people. Maybe she was doing her best.

We often hear the saying, "Just do your best." But even when people do their best we still often criticize them for not doing enough. Everyone's 'best' is different, yet that doesn't stop people from comparing others to some sort of standard.

Emotional standards are even more tricky and misunderstood than physical standards. It is easy to say that a person of a certain age and size should be able to do so many push-ups, or so many sit-ups. It is more difficult to say, for example, how many things a person should be able to process in their mind at once, or how long it should take a person to get over a loss. The standards for these kinds of things are less specific, yet there are still expectations. If you are grieving the death of a loved one for too long, people start to say there is something wrong with you. If you are not as emotional as other people, you are considered strange or bad. But what if you are doing your best, and you just can't live up to all the standards?

There are many people who believe that if a person isn't living up to socially acceptable standards, then they need to do something to 'fix' themselves. This means things like therapy, counseling, and research. I agree that many of these can be helpful to people in psychological distress. But at what point does a person stop being 'broken'? Some people are made differently than others, and just because their 'best' isn't up to snuff doesn't necessarily mean their is something wrong with that person that needs to be fixed. Even if that person wants to fix something about themselves, not everything is fixable. Just as you don't 'fix' a missing leg, you don't 'fix' all psychological problems. You learn to live with it.

You wouldn't expect a person with one leg and one prosthetic leg to be able to run as fast as someone with two legs. So why would you expect someone who had a difficult time with emotions to be able to deal with them the same as someone who doesn't? Just because you can see a weakness doesn't make it any more valid than a weakness you can't see.

So next time someone tells you they are doing their best to make it through this life, maybe you should accept it as good enough instead of pushing for better.