Are you Doing your Best?

I bumped into a friend the other day who was going to be traveling for business in a few days and was frantically trying to get everything under control while she was gone. She’s a single mom and needed to have someone stay with her daughter, someone else pick her daughter up from school, and still another person to make handle some of her daily tasks that couldn’t be put on hold. She had to call in the assistance of 4 people to do her job.

Like most women, this woman was a Super Woman, she was doing all of the things she needs to do to care for the people she loves while she tries to run her own business and grow it. She was doing all of these things remarkably well, and yet she still felt as though she should be doing much better.

She started comparing herself to people online. Friends on social media posting photos of their successes and celebrations while she dealt with sinks full of dirty dishes, unfolded laundry on the dining room table and shoes strewn across the living room floor.

She was overwhelmed and exhausted, even though she was doing a remarkable job raising her children alone and spearheading a successful career.

She was doing her best, but didn’t recognize it, probably for the shoes and dirty dishes.

She isn’t alone, we all do this. We all compare our worst to other people’s best. That’s exhausting and overwhelming, but most of all it’s unfair.

If you’re doing your best, the dirty dishes in the sink don’t matter. If you’re doing your best, pat yourself on the back and give yourself some credit. If you’re doing your best, don’t compare your life to the lives of people you see on the internet. Those snapshots have been carefully crafted to perfection. They are not real.

I’ll say it again, those images of perfection are nothing more than illusion and to compare your daily life to them is a fools errand. Most of us are faced with pretty similar struggles – raising kids, going to work, paying the bills, keeping a house, cooking the meals, trying to stay healthy. And that’s a lot for anyone. Allow yourself the luxury of accepting that your life doesn’t look like the ones on social media that have been run through all kinds of filters. Life can be messy, life can be challenging, life can knock you down sometimes, but if you’re doing your best, that’s all that matters. Be grateful for what you have, and don’t worry about the what you don’t have. That’s the best you can do.