The Best Is a Moving Target, But It Is the Target for Which We Must Aim.
Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the U.S. nuclear Navy was interviewing a Naval Academy graduate, Ensign, as I recall, who aspired to one day have his job as Chief of Naval Operations.
My hero, was asked by his hero, ?“When you were in school and in all your life, did you always do your best?”
?The young officer wanted to say “yes” but he also wanted to be truthful.
?“No,” he said, “I didn’t do my best all the time.”
Admiral Rickover stared at him and asked, “Why not?”
My hero was so impacted by that question that he wrote a book entitled, “Why Not the Best?” He then, went on to become the 39th President of the United States. Today, James Earl Carter is our oldest living former President, the oldest ever and has said he wants to live for his 100th birthday in September and then, until November to vote in one more presidential election.
Why not the best?
Mikey sat in my office making excuses for not reaching his goals that week.
But Tommy, he said, I did my best.
“Don’t say that Mikey,” I replied. "If it was your best, it would leave no room for growth or improvement."
Our best is a moving target.
In the future, it will be more than it is today.
Concerning that time, Abraham Lincoln quipped, “The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.”
We gain vision and wisdom with time and experience and our goals get larger and more vividly decorative. Malcolm S. Forbes Said, “The best vision is insight.”
As we get to know ourselves better, our inner reach for more of what we can be and produce deepens and grows. What we cannot do ourselves, we come to accept, and we gather around us, those who can outshine us. They become part of our best.
Theodore Roosevelt reflected that, “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”
?Rickover, Carter, Mikey, Lincoln, Forbes, and Roosevelt have contributed to my thinking about best things.
What, then, is the best?
I tend to think in acronyms.
Here is my contribution to those who, today, are aiming beyond mediocrity for what is best:
B – It Is Better.
The best is better than good.
If all you want it good, there are many choices. none of them are the best. They are just OK.?
For those whose aim is toward the best, today is opportune and tomorrow is a place of wonder. Progress is expected. Failures are the price of success and are merely temporary assessments on the road to what is incrementally better.
People who are focused on being and doing their best are not discouraged by their imperfections, but inspired toward something better which is ever before them.
?E - Ever
?The best is ever improving, ever reaching, ever growing, ever expanding, and ever celebrating small victories are characteristics of people who aim high and keep aiming higher and higher.
People who intend to be and do their best are "EVER People."
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Such people have a sense of eternity in their hearts whatever that means to them, knowing that their lifespan is not all there is, but that it is important and that every single day counts.
The most effective "Ever People" are also "Forever People" who have grounded their lives in something that can interpret their existence in terms of a larger and longer purpose.
In the meantime, they keep going.
?S - Satisfied Dissatisfaction
Best-oriented people are, at the same time, satisfied and dissatisfied. They are ever becoming and never satisfied with mediocrity.
At the same time, they have a deep sense of satisfaction which is not to be confused with complacency.
It comes from enjoying the journey, celebrating progress, and living by grace.
Grace not only offers divine forgiveness for shortcomings and mercy for our failures, but it gives us the ability to receive these and renew our hope that we can become more and do more.
This sort of satisfaction is deep and inner and is never circumstantial or subject to our arbitrary score cards. Because it is not circumstantial, it means we can never be circumstantially satisfied while at the same time, we are kept steady by the power of peace.
T - Trust
?People who aim for the best are people who are cultivating an extraordinary capacity for faith in what they believe as well as in themselves and others.
They trust that they are people of destiny and purpose and that they have been fashioned for the unfolding of a great and glorious purpose. They are infused with trust that what is better is not merely a fantasy, but a possibility.
You cannot aim for the best without believing in it or in the possibility of its attainment.
“Did you do your best?”
Admiral Rickover’s voice echoes down from the lofty seat where he resides in history.
“Did you?”
“I tried,” I replied.?
I aimed. I focused. I improved. I got better. I made it an ever and forever aim. The target moved and I moved with it. I was satisfied in the journey, but always dissatisfied with the results so that all I could do was trust and I am trusting still?
“I’m pressing on the upward way.
New heights, I’m gaining every day.
Still praying as I’m onward bound,
Lord plant my feet on higher ground.”?
That’s my best.
?