Best Isn't Good Enough

Remember the philosophies of elementary school.  Dream big. If you put your mind to it, you can be whatever you want.  Well eventually, these dreams die.  You thought you could do anything, but then you find out, that not everyone can be a major league ballplayer.  That there are only 30 NBA teams, and there aren’t enough roster spots for everyone who wants to play in NBA.  Or maybe you’re like Dwayne and can’t be a pilot because you’re color blind.  Eventually the harsh reality hits us, and we compromise our dreams.

Now that I got a little off topic, let’s go back to the other elementary philosophy: Give it your best shot.  This is completely true.  Whatever you do, you should give it 100% (I’m a statistics nerd, and you can’t give more than 100%, so I would never say give 110% since it is impossible.)  It’s a waste of your time to do something half-heartedly.  If you commit to something, you better give it your all.

Side rant: How silly does this sound? One of my high school friends took the SAT with almost no preparation just to see how she would do.  She clearly didn’t give her best, nor did she try to give it her best shot.  No matter what, you practically gain nothing from the experience.  Even if you’re happy with your scores, you know you could do better if you tried, so you’ll definitely take them again later, making the first test obsolete.  So by gaining the “experience” of a SAT, you lost the test fee and the whole Saturday you used to take the test.  She’ll agree with me that she kind of regretted it, (I think). Basically, if you don’t give it your best shot, you’ll regret it no matter what you do.

Success - Growing up, our best shot normally works.  If we commit to studying for a spelling test, our best will ace the test.  If we commit for an AP exam, we’ll probably be happy with the results.  If we commit to getting into a certain college, we can probably do it.  But eventually, we commit to something, work hard, and seriously give it our best shot, and then we fail. 

Harsh Reality - That is without a doubt one of the worst feelings in life.  That we failed at something we poured everything into.   That all our hard work, dedication, and preparation wasn’t good enough.  Go watch a high school athlete’s final game, more specifically a committed high school athlete.  So many of them have dedicated their high school career to that sport.  They’ve spent countless hours working and training.  But in their final game, their best isn’t good enough, they lose and their state championships dreams die. (unless you play football at Phoebus).  They come up short, and what further validates to me that it’s the worst feeling in life, is seeing them cry.  Most high school boys never cry, and pride themselves on it.  But when our best isn’t good enough, when we fail in our final game, the harsh reality hits us and many athletes cry.

I’m seeing super talented friends come up short a lot these days.  As a fourth year, everyone is trying to a get that dream job and a nice salary.  Many students pour their lives into these resumes, cover letters, and interviews and hope to land their dream job.  But dream jobs are in short supply, and many super talented and super qualified people fail.  They’re told that, we know you gave it your best, but today your best isn’t good enough.

So give it your best, and pray that your best will be good enough.  But understand that giving your best does not guarantee that you’ll be good enough, and it’s just a devastating fact of life.