Doing your best can look different everyday

Unintentional as it may be, this is a fitting title for the first blog post I am publishing after taking months off from writing in this space. I was having my usual morning reflection when I realized something important. Every single day, I give life the best that I have to offer. It doesn’t always feel like I did or look the same, but I do.

There are days when my best involves doing all the work and taking care of family responsibilities. There are days when doing my best means that I checked something off of my long, ever-growing to do list. There are also days when my best is simply feeding and hugging our babies. What matters the most to me is that the tasks I accomplish each day, be it one or 20, move me forward in life - even if forward just means the next day sometimes.

In this spirit, I can take months off from writing on my beloved blog guilt free. I can start a podcast (Peacefully Yours in case you haven’t heard) and put it on hold after a couple of episodes because it doesn’t need to be my priority right now. I can rearrange my schedule to fit in new priorities while dropping all. And even though it is not always easy, I can do all of this while also recognizing that I am, in fact, doing my best. Just knowing that takes so much weight off of my shoulders. Being aware that no one else can define how much MY best should be.

As it so happens, I can officially celebrate completing the first year of my Ph.D. program today. Classes ended last week, but I had been waiting on one final grade. It finally showed up, looking every bit as different from the rest of my grades as I expected. I earned a B for this one, and I mean that word in every possible way. Just completing that course in the midst of death and sickness in my close circle was a win that I cannot take for granted. So, even in this situation, I recognize that I gave it my best.

I will begin a new semester in three short weeks. It is impossible for me to predict what it will take for me to finish that one. All I know for a fact is that, every time I am blessed enough to be among the living, I will wake up and be. With babies who are growing by the minute as well as other family or work obligations, seeing the progress I’ve made in life convinces me that even when it doesn’t seem like it, I have given it my very best. That has got to be good enough.