Do your best every day

Every morning the dog and I go for a walk. Near our house is a cemetery, so we sometimes wander through. One of the headstones there had a poem on it that caught my eye. "He is blest who does his best and leaves the rest to God."

(Photo taken by me)

As a recovering control freak, I found this statement particularly interesting. I have learned that I only have control over me - my actions, my words, my movements. The actions and words of others are beyond my control. It is up to me to do my best, and leave the rest.

I want to be the kind of person who welcomes everyone into her presence with grace and ease and understanding. I want to put the best mind, the best heart, the best spiritual part of me forward. Some days those aspirations are far from what I achieve. Some days I go on automatic pilot, not really seeing or hearing whomever is in front of me.

Fortunately, tomorrow is another day. It's another opportunity to do the best I can where I am - to put my energy out into the universe and let the universe do with it what it will.

As a child, I used to play in the tiny stream near my parents' house. I would clear aside twigs, leaves, and branches from the stream's waters. I thought I was helping. I was doing something important. Now with the eyes of an adult, I realize that the stream was there long before I was. It will hopefully be there for years to come. And it somehow manages to keep flowing without me moving twigs and leaves aside. I don't need to urge the water on for it to flow.

I'm learning (slowly) that the universe is like that also. Things work because there is a vast system, a vast power, that is already in place moving through us all. This can be destructive (such as this unstoppable force) or it can be transformative. In any case, it's not personal. It's just the way things work.

So it's up to me to do my best, and be kind to myself, while I figure out which way the stream of my life is flowing. I take a bit of comfort and inspiration from some words by Victor Hugo. He wrote, "Have courage for the great sorrows of life, and patience for the small ones. When you have laboriously accomplished your daily tasks, go to sleep in peace. God is awake."

Good night.