Just do it (what you can)

I was really stuck in my life at one time. Oh, on the surface I wasn't doing so badly. I was married, had a lot of friends, a college degree. But on the inside I was a mess. Thing is I thought I should be able to do the things a married college graduate with lots of friends should do. But the fact of the matter was that the mess I was on the inside wasn't going along with that plan. So yeah, I was stuck, big-time.

So I wasn't out there getting a big job and hauling in big bucks. I wasn't going to be winning any fancy awards. I didn't have what it took to be a hero. About all I knew at that point in my life was that I was going nowhere, and I couldn't see any way out of it.

Then I discovered one single bit of information that changed my life.

Somebody told me that if I couldn't do all the high-falutin' things I wanted to, I should just do what I could. It seems so obvious now, but at the time it was absolutely revolutionary to me.

So if I couldn't get that big job, I could still do the best I could at my crappy little job. If I couldn't be a superstar, I could at least say a kind word to the mailman or smile at the old man waiting for the bus. Everything counted. Even if it was just effort and not results. I started counting days that only had one line in my journal—"Tried hard and failed."—as successes.

Doing what I could has been my motto ever since. It's freeing. It works. Don't worry about what you can't do (and feel you should be able to). Just do what you can.