Thursday, September 22, 2011

Today My Best Isn't As Good As It Was Yesterday

I realized something yesterday when I picked my daughter up from riding lesson, her best yesterday wasn't as good as it had been the day before.  She still did her very best, but it just wasn't as good.  She had a myrid of errors not previously experienced.  It was then that I realized our best varies.  Some days it's higher and better than others.  Some days everything we touches turns to gold, and some days we were better to never get out of bed because it all turned to dust.

As I watch my poor child, teary eyed, and upset about her performace, I found myself asking her the same questions that I asked every day.  Did you try your hardest?  Did you do your very best?  I realized as she responded with an I guess not, that it wasn't that she hadn't tried, it was just her best today was different than yesterday.

As parents we teach our children do your best in everything  you do and it will all turn out ok.  We then expect them to go out and make that a reality.  To do their best every day, but when they bring home a D or F on the paper they wrote we usually jump to the conclusion that they didn't apply themselves, or they didn't do what we consider their best.  But what if a D or F is their best for the day?  What do we do then?  How to we help our children learn that some days really just stink and there is nothing we can do.  What if what your child did was their best for the day, even when it didn't match  your expectations?

I think the lesson I want my children to learn in life is that it's not about what you did or didn't do.  It's not about the mistakes or even the successes you had, but truely about doing your best in everything you do.  There are days when your best really just won't be good enough.  When all is said and done you really won't have made the grade, but they have to learn that just like life their best changes.  Their are hills and valleys, mountain tops and sea depths.  You have to walk through all of them to create a well rounded experiance.  You learn more walking through the rain than through the sunshine sometimes and if all you can give today is a rainy day best, I'm ok with that.  Today I love you and tomorrow I will love you, and there will come a day when your best brings you to a mountain top, but not all your best days are mountain top days.  The days you have that are really just off, those are the days you learn what you are made of.  When you give what you have, learn your lessons, and move on to tomorrow.  Because quite possibly tomorrow your best will be better than today.