Don Miguel Ruiz’ Four Agreements, and the book he wrote about them, have had a powerful influence on my perceptions, thoughts, feelings and actions (reflected in a number of blog posts, as well as the Values statement for Interrelativity, my closed-down start-up) over the two years since I first encountered them:
- Be Impeccable With Your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
- Don’t Take Anything Personally: Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
- Don’t Make Assumptions: Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
- Always Do Your Best: Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
I find all four of these agreements inspiring and challenging, and have always struggled the most with the last one. In the book, Don Miguel elaborates in some ways that are very appealing, e.g.,
Doing your best is taking an action because you love it, not because you’re expecting a reward. …
When you do your best, you learn to accept yourself. But you have to be aware and learn from your mistakes. Learning from your mistakes means you practice, look honestly at the results, and keep practicing. This increases your awareness.
I’m all for intrinsic (vs. extrinsic) motivation, and believe that everything we do is a practice. I also believe in [the art of] making mistakes wakefully … and, somewhat paradoxically, also believe that there are no mistakes, only lessons.
I am a perfectionist by nature, if not nurture, and [so] I can look back on any action (and many perceptions, feelings and thoughts), and see how I could have done better, if only I’d been more mindful, attentive, considerate, thoughtful, actful, perceptive, prepared, thorough, etc. I don’t know if I can reflect upon anything I’ve done (/seen/felt/thought) and honestly say that I did my best … I could always have done better.
Don Miguel offers an exculpatory perspective: "Your best will sometimes be of high quality, and other times it wll not be as good." But can it ever be of the highest quality? And if, other times, it is not "as good", doesn’t that mean it could have been better … and thus, not my best?
As far as I can determine, I’m either always doing my best — and so, trying to do my best is moot (at best) — or I’m never doing my best — in which case, trying to do my best may be futile (at worst). This is all closely related to my ongoing dilemma about acceptance and striving — accepting myself exactly as I am while, simultaneously, always wanting to be[come] better (and I’ll note that this acceptance dilemma arose in a New Year’s Eve Party discussion last year, and this "always do your best" dilemma arose in a post-Thanksgiving Party discussion this year … so I may not be the ideal invitee to a holiday celebration … I tend to gravitate toward large talk rather than small talk).
My Warrior Monk training has left me [a bit] more open to accepting — if not (yet) embracing –paradoxes, and so the dilemma of whether I’m always or never doing my best doesn’t keep me awake at night. However, given how compelling I find the other three agreements proposed by Don Miguel Ruiz, I’m wondering whether I’m missing something obvious (perhaps I’m not doing my best here :-).
I never presume that anyone is reading my blog … but if anyone does happen to stumble across this, and feels inclined to sharing any wisdom (or confusion) on the topic, I’m very eager to gain greater clarity on this issue.
Comments
18 responses to ““Always Do Your Best”: Always or Never?”
Well, my vote is you are doing your best. The proof is you are willing to find the truth.
Well, my vote is you are doing your worst. The proof is you keep searching for the truth.
Under both conditions, you are willing to be with reality. And reality doesn’t need the judgment of best or worst. What it requires is noticing you can’t solve the problem, then leaning into what’s left.
And that just IS. Like light sweeping across the room in the course of a day, it just is.
So you stay there, to see what might come; what might be revealed.
O yesss i agree dad. i agree.
Love it. I would like add another one. “Dont procrastinate”
Your ability to look honestly at and understand this issue is, in my opinion, proof that you are doing your best. Doing your best would seem to me to be a choice you make continuously. It’s not something that you decide once and then put out of your mind and don’t think about again. You seem to be asking yourself at all times, am I doing my best? Even if the answer is no, you’re asking the question, accepting reality (as the first commenter noted) and adjusting so that your best is better the next time.
Think how many people make that new year’s resolution to do their best and then don’t think about it again. Or go to church once a week, speak the words and then don’t follow through.
Thanks for posting this, I’m going to go back and reread this little book 🙂
Hi Joe,
You may have seen the Voltaire quote “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien” translated as “The perfect is the enemy of the good”, but babelfish translates “le mieux” as “best” (. I take that as not saying one should never do one’s best, but more that a sense of balance and proportion is in order. If doing one’s best on one task mean one doesn’t get to the next, that *may* be appropriate … or it may not. Maybe “always do your best” is a goal for the macro level, not micro.
Re “this “always do your best” dilemma arose in a post-Thanksgiving Party discussion this year … I may not be the ideal invitee to a holiday celebration” — it would fit right in with some holiday discussions with my friends and family!
I came across your blog by way of your CSCW 2006 write-up (via a link from an ACM email about various articles).
hello
You know I was just having your same dilemma today and therefore found your post – because I was searching for some perspective 🙂
The reality of “doing your best” is extremely complex… or should I say as complex as you would like your reality to be… I could write about this for pages and pages…
You see – things always change every day – outlooks – theories – perspectives etc etc.
If you need to step back and ground yourself – get back tp basics… what are basics you may ask?
Well… look at it this way: If I pick up a guitar for the first time and am asked to play it in front of crowd… how good will it sound? not good at all… never played before – If I practice for a month how good will it sound? better – if I practice harder for a month how good will it sound? probably even better… 🙂 this is a basic truth – but when you tread deep… this is where you get into philosophy my friend – for that month of practice – maybe if I practiced smarter or had better guidance I could have played even better! maybe less practice is better then too much in such a short period of time etc etc. It can become quite crazy to start thinking of every angel 🙂 BUT!!! BACK TO THE TRUTH! the truth is… if i didn’t practice at all – i would still sound as bad as when I first picked up the guitar a month before 🙂 get it? Life has lots of variables… it’s not perfect by design… Thats why life as the BUDDHA called it… is a struggle 🙂 within all that struggle – just remember to show up and keep refining what you do… if you improve at the end of the week – great! don’t question if you did enough? there is alway more and always less – just walk away and say I got better this week and learned new things 🙂
Cheers and hope this helps – it sure helped me writing it! 🙂
Maurizio
Hi maurizio, thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences on this topic. I agree that life can become crazy if one always thinks of every angle, and your observation that “Life has lots of variables” is well taken. I guess the fundamental tension, for me, is that when I do my best in improving one dimension (increasing the value of one variable?), I am, by definition, not doing my best in other dimensions. Perhaps, as I think you are suggesting, the solution is simply to make my peace with the struggle, i.e., not struggle with resolving it one way or another, but recognize that it is an unresolvable struggle … and to do my best in accepting that. Meanwhile, I wish you all the best in doing your best to resolve – or make your peace with – your dilemma!
I just had tea with my middle school students and we discussed this agreement. It is so hard. I think living in the moment is the easiest way to try to do your best. Accepting and learning from your mistakes, instead of getting angry helps me. It is worth the effort. I feel I am much more content, even when I fail, because I know I tried my best.
I think an interesting issue is how to realize when we are doing our best versus less than our best? Are we able to tell by some inherent gauge that we have? To me, the answer is yes. I don’t know about you, but I can sense when I am really doing my best, versus not. The time when I most unambigously feel this is when I am exercising. If I’m dead tired at the end, I feel I did my best. If I feel bored, like I didn’t take advantage of the time I had to work out, I conclude that I didn’t do my best. But I feel like becomes more murky in less physical endeavors. If I go to a class and want to impress my instructor with a smart comment, and I do make such a comment, but know that I could have an even cleverer one, do I feel that I’ve done my best? That’s tricky. I coudl argue that my dissatisfaction arises from the fact that I know that I could have done better. And yet, isn’t it also possible to do my best, and still feel dissatisfied by the result (ie I lose a sports shampionship, even though I played my hardest.) The answer, thankfully, is no! Once I let go of external results (which I’ve done) and realize that literally the only thing I can control is my own effort, I feel better about the entire situation. How and why? Because I realize that the perception that I really could change the outcome or external result was just an illusion the whole time. It sounds cliche, but its pretty true, when you think about it: the outcome of every engagement is decided before the parties even engage. Our natural abilities and aptitudes are given to us by nature, but are certainly not controlled by us, by any means. The only thing we control is our own wills, and sometimes even that can be over-ridden by bio or physiological factors (ask any person with an addiction problem, like me, about that). Anyway, no need to repeat the same thing many different ways. Bottom line: the “do your best” mantra is learned by every kindergaatertener, dismissed in adolsence when you’re like “Screw doing my best….I wanna win!” but then embraced again by the old and wise, when you realize that your “best” was the only thing you ever really had control over anyway! Cheers.
Stephen: thanks for sharing your insights and experiences with doing your best. I agree that physical exhaustion is a good marker for having done my best in a physical activity, and share your ambivalence about markers for less physical endeavors – indeed, I sometimes feel energized by more intellectual or social activities in which I feel I’ve done my best (though these types of activities can also sometimes leave me feeling exhausted). I also agree with the idea that the key to happiness is letting go of outcomes … and that this insight typically only [re]emerges with time and experience. The only point of contention is that I personally don’t believe that every (or any) outcome is pre-determined … but I was recently introduced to Michael Brooks’ book, 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, which includes a chapter on free will … and I have not yet done my best to followup on this new exposure to an old thread.
You are doubting yourself. You are plagued with self-doubt and you are always questioning your efforts. The solution is straight-forward: become confident. Learn to accept yourself exactly as you are for starters. Then start wondering about how much better you could become, if you only tried. When you can walk away from every situation and say, Well, I tried – then you’ll be at your best. Step one: can the depressing “never good enough” self-talk. It’s holding you back and it’s a built-in excuse for failure. Do you want to fail? Good – now get started.
Dom: Your words appear to exude the confidence of which you preach. Thanks for sharing your interpretation of the fourth agreement, and for offering me an opportunity to practice the second agreement … and to reflect on the first and third.
Phrase should be “Do your best using what you have at hand” if you want to make a fancy dinner and you only have some eggs, well it can be difficult, you could make some fantastic PERFECT eggs but fail on the ‘fancy, gourmet’ thing. Yet you still did your best
If you wrote about something you were meditating about, and time after you find your writings and conclusions were mistaken, well you couldn’t have done different since you wrote at your best ubderstanding.
It’s like buying a computer. You know whatever you buy Today will be cheaper tomorrow and will be outdated. It’s not a paradox, you get the best you can afford at the moment and avoid thinking on what you could buy tomorrow.
hector: I really like these analogies, especially with respect to writing, which is a form of meditation, or at least mindful practice (for me). I often go back and read things I’ve written, especially on this blog, and find that my perspective has evolved (and not always in ways that I would judge to be for the better). One of the rewarding aspects of blogging is that my understanding can unfold over time, reflecting insights contributed by others as well as my own inner changes. Thanks for your contributions!
I feel for you Joe I’ve been in similar situations, but doubting yourself and stressing about whether you are doing your best or not is taking away from you actually doing your best at this moment. There is nothing wrong with questioning something but be aware once that starts to turn into doubt and over analyzation of a simple concept. The best way I can put it is to not think about doing your best, but instead take action to do your best and put your doubts to rest. Think too much about a thing and it will never get done. “no need to stress holds you back too much.” I hope this helps, peace
Jamil: thanks for your input. I’m reminded of Yoda’s famous dictum in Star Wars: “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Watching a video clip of the scene reminded me of Yoda’s other advice: “you must unlearn what you have learned”.
There are certainly times when I analyze something beyond the point of diminishing returns. Writing this post and receiving the feedback from others – combined with the passage of time – leaves me much less stressed about the issue (one of many instances of blogging-induced therapeutic effects), so I’m increasingly willing and able to simply do my best in any given situation … and move on to other issues.
Do your best, huh?
I guess it depends on the person’s preference, I rarely do my best on boring things because I think it’s just not worth it. I don’t feel regretful either. Why the regret over meaningless things ? Unless these meaningless things are prerequisites to your goal.
I do my best when it comes to the things I’m actually interested in, and I don’t need to be reminded to do my best, because it’s just so interesting.