Contentment

I grabbed a book off the shelf today, hoping for a quick, easy dose of feel-good reading.  The tiny book I picked up was I Hope You Know How Much I Love You and Other Advice for a Happy Life by John Bytheway.  He begins by telling us about the advice he got from his mother,

"Do your best.  Be good.  Be nice.  Say 'thank you.'  And don't worry, everything will be all right."

 He then goes on to explain that those are still important things to him, but they have evolved somewhat.

 "...'do your best' became be content."

I found this to be an interesting evolution considering my own struggles with "do your best."  To me, "do your best" was always something that would have been attainable if I had pushed myself a little bit harder.  I was one of those rare people that actually had a very good image of what my potential was, and any thing less than the full realization of that potential did not count, to me, as doing my best.  Contentment and doing my best were not even in the same ballpark.

Even today, I struggle with balancing the accepting of who I am and where I am, with striving for improvement.  Life, or God, or the Universe, keeps reminding me though.  Having a chronic illness that affects my energy, my pain levels, and my ability to think clearly has forced me to rethink what it means to do my best.  My best is no longer what I am capable of if I push myself really hard.  my best is now what my body will allow me to do.  My best doesn't get my house cleaned.  My best doesn't keep up on the business side of my music studio.  My best doesn't always get the bills paid on time.  And I'm starting to be OK with that.  Contentment or apathy?