Lesson 20: The Best You Can

The more that I reflect on this blog and this learning everyday business, the more I see that I'm not necessarily learning facts of life. Rather, I'm learning more about myself, the world that I operate in, and expectations that I have of myself and the world around me. And I think that's even more valuable than that "book knowledge" that you get in school.

Today I learned that all things considered, I have a really great boss. Of course, she isn't perfect. No one is. But despite those imperfections, she has never made me feel as if I'm not good enough or that I'm not good at my job. Quite the contrary. I feel like she's trusted me in my position and she has always made me feel like I've done well in my position. And if I have indeed done a good job, it's in large part because of her support.

I've worked with so many people in numerous capacities, and I've noticed but not always accepted that you cannot please everyone. It's never easy to field the disappointment that comes with such situations, and I know that administrators and supervisors probably deal with these times more than the rest of us. My boss says the best way to handle those situations is to tell people, "I'm doing the best I can." As someone who has always aspired to the top and never wanted to settle for mediocrity, that's a difficult lesson to grasp.

Also in the process of learning that even though can't do everything, it doesn't mean that your talent is worth nothing. Passion for a certain issue doesn't mean that you should be involved with everything that benefits that cause. Sometimes it just wasn't mean to be and you realize that you're more effective when you focus on just a couple of things that matter the most and put what you can into them. I'm reminded of one of my favorite Thomas Merton quotes:

One of the chief obstacles to this perfection of selfless charity is the selfish anxiety to get the most out of everything, to be a brilliant success in our own eyes and in the eyes of other men. We can only get rid of this anxiety by being content to miss something in almost everything we do. We cannot master everything, taste everything, understand everything, drain every experience to its last dregs. But if we have the courage to let almost everything else go, we will probably be able to retain the one thing necessary for us--whatever it may be. If we are too eager to have everything, we will most certainly miss even the one thing we need.

Happiness consists in finding out precisely what "the one thing necessary" may be in our lives and in gladly relinquishing all the rest. For then, bu a divine paradox, we find that everything else is given together with the one thing we needed.-Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island

Isn't it interesting how some things can touch us so profoundly but we still forget them. Then when we re-encounter them, it's like a brand new epiphany.