My Best
Figuring out what works for me ... that’s what I do best.
Starting at an early age, I proved a frustration for responsible adults, including my teachers and parents. During my primary school years, I could have easily acquired a vast sum of money had I charged a dollar for every time a teacher told me —
or worse, my mother — that I did not work up to my potential.
One high school teacher actually quit teaching after having me in her class two years in a row. I’m sure there were other factors (my ego isn’t quite so enormous as to imagine I could influence a very competent educator to end her career), but she did tell my mother that my shoddy performance had shaken her faith in her own abilities.
“She had one of the highest grades in the class when I came in,” Mrs. C. reported to my mother after filling in for my regular geometry teacher, out on maternity leave mid-year. “Then her grades plummeted.”
I remember that transition well. I was only taking geometry because I needed it to get into Vanderbilt, but I had just learned that, while I could probably get accepted, I would not get the financial support to enable me to be a Commodore. I had to revise my college plans for a state school, one that didn’t require geometry for acceptance.
And so, I just stopped trying. I spent the remainder of my time in geometry class honing stories for the school newspaper, chasing scoops for my column in the local weekly paper, and challenging my school newspaper advisors by harping about First Amendment rights ... because the one thing I really cared about doing right was writing.
For better or worse, that hasn’t changed a whole lot since my school days. If I really, really enjoy something or care about an issue, I will pursue it until the ends of the earth. I still sometimes wake at night thinking about an editorial I wrote for a Columbus, OH, newspaper in 2000 and regretting the use of a particular set of words. My choice was OK, but not the best I could have used. And it still irritates me, because I could have done better.
Most of us are told at some point in our lives by a well-meaning relative, teacher or mentor: “If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well.” Or the corollary, “If you are going to be a ditch digger, be the best darn ditch digger you can be.”
Well, if you expect me to approve these words, you’re out of luck. As a member of the “Me” generation, I’m here to say that no one else can really tell us what our best is. Our parents, spouses and caring friends most certainly mean well when they get into our beeswax and tell us we can do better. As women, how many times has a well-meaning girlfriend told us, “Oh, you can do SO much better!” than a particular man? Or a job? Or even a hair cut? Admit it. It happens a lot, and usually, no matter how self-confident we are, we at least contemplate whether there is merit to the words.
But only we can truly know the best course of action for ourselves. It is not for our best girlfriend, or best boyfriend, or husband, or boss, or parent, to tell us what the best thing for us is, or that we could do better, be better, look better, get more.
I have struggled for years to determine what my best is. As a young adult, I grew tired of hearing the “you don’t work up to your potential” argument. In my lack of self-awareness, I looked to others for examples of how to find my best.
“What I’m doing apparently isn’t working,” I thought to myself. “So I’ll try what’s working for others.”
Take my brother, for instance. In my mind, success came easily to him. Everything he touched turned to gold. His grades were excellent, seemingly with little effort or studying. He was a junior politician at his university, active in student government and a large presence on campus. He won awards for public speaking, academics and leadership. Most adults did, indeed, seem fully convinced the sun shone from one of his ears and the moon from the other.
So I, too, became a junior politician. I joined every campus organization I could. I wore navy suits with floppy, 80’s-style bow ties and tucked-front blouses to class. I sucked up to college administrators and gained a few honors myself. I followed up that exemplary display of self knowledge by entering a career designed for someone else’s talents.
Please, gentle reader, don’t think my quest for another’s best was limited to career only. Oh, no. My best friend, whom I have known since kindergarten, got married a year after college. She and her husband made marriage look so great I decided I should give that a try, too. In fact, those two made it look so good I tried marriage a couple of times, despite a growing body of evidence marriage was not a state in which I thrived.
Suffice it to say I am now neither in the same career I began after college nor am I married. There was nothing wrong with the careers I’ve tried or the men I married. They were all great — just not the best careers or men for me.
It has taken me a long time and a lot of introspection and experimentation to fully discover what is best for me, and frankly, it’s an ongoing process. But I have finally given up on cramming my square-peg self into round holes. I won’t be the first woman governor of Tennessee, as I once thought, and I’ll never be a married Super Mom, a local Angelina Jolie with a pack of beautiful children, an equally gorgeous husband and a career as a humanitarian activist and glamour icon. I won’t even be my brother, who still overachieves ... or my best friend, who is now in year 22 of her marriage ... or, for that matter, the best project manager in my day job.
And you know what? I am pretty much fine with that, and getting better by the day. Because I finally had an epiphany that the best thing for me is to give in to who I am. (Who knew being yourself actually worked?) I know I am at my best when I am reading, researching and writing. It gives me as much of a thrill to craft a perfect sentence and see my byline in print as it did when I was a high school student failing geometry.
I am also at my best when I eat healthily, get a reasonable amount of exercise, a good night’s sleep, when I crack stupid, slapstick jokes that cause my friends to roll their eyes, and when I don’t go out with men who tell me how to dress or that I would be hot if I lost weight.
This may sound mundane, and I realize it isn’t rocket science, but I am just betting some of you have also struggled with making the best choices for yourselves and with not letting others define your life. Some of us may have no other goal in mind but to be a ditch digger. If that is what you truly desire to do, then yes. You should spend your life being the best possible ditch digger you can be. And, if that is, indeed, what you want to do and that is what you enjoy, you probably will be. You may even develop new technology that will change the way ditch digging is accomplished.
As for me, I’m now middle-aged. My journey to find my best isn’t over, and I still occasionally hear that I could do better. Sometimes it comes from co-workers, and sometimes, God bless her, from my loving mother. But you know, that’s OK because I know most days I’m doing my best, as only I can do it.
