You are more than "the best."

This is a photo of me stressing out over not being "the best," while recording a song.

You don’t have to be the best.

It’s hard to understand. The best is successful, the best means I’m being intentional, maxing out my ride while it lasts! Right? It’s hard to believe that not being “the best,” is an option not to feel semi-guilty about choosing, right…. we work for straight A’s, we work for promotions, we work for high credit scores and acceptance letters. This is how we are built to measure our success and by most standards, for our “success,” to measure our worth. We are congratulated and treated with respect when we are accomplished. People toast us, gold stars are given at the top right corner and new levels of admiration surface. The best is the objective! But what is it just...wasn’t all the time?

See, I love goals. I love them so deeply and dearly that they are center of my internal compass, which guides me where and how to prioritize the way I live about in the world. There’s a reason that New Year’s Resolutions and 30-challenges are so popular, for the most part, we all want to just slightly better than we already are. Better routines, time management-hacks, non-negotiables, Get Up and Fuckin’ Get ‘em Tiger shit. We got to all extents to just out-best our last best; bullying alarm clocks with gentle reminders that you’re a lazy piece if you miss this run, or that your 50th squat of the day is the answer to all the things, more energy! Happier feels in a swimsuit! Better photographs! There is always something to lean on that tells us, the way you’re doing it could be done just a little bit better if you try [insert Life Hack.] Once you’ve tried [Life Hack] you probably still don’t have it, so try [Podcast,] [Book,] [Easier way to work-out,] or this really awesome [efficient thing.] Have you tried [vitamin] yet?

I’ve done it, I do it. A few years back a did the Master Cleanse until I almost passed out. A few years before that I drank so much apple juice after hearing that it was a good two-day cleanse from some girl who had an unreasonably blessed physique, that I don’t think the lining of my stomach will ever be the same again. Let alone my relationship to apple juice. I go to the extra Inversions workshops at yoga so I can “perfect,” a practice that is supposed to be an ever-changing experience as is, defined zero by the physical appearance of it. There are Post-It notes of Goal Reminders all over my computer and almost everyone of my journals and day planners has a section to “keep me on track,” with my long and/or short-term goals. I subscribe to all the shit. Newsletter? Mantra reminder? Deals for cooler life experiences making me fucking cooler all around? Sign me up, baby.

Nearly everything can be turned into an opportunity to become just a little bit better; your Instagram could be more chic, you could plate your food like fuckin’ Top Chef, your weekend could be wrapped in brown paper Magnolias, you could run an extra mile and track your friends progress being all super-uber-supportive-and-accountable, you could spend more time reading up on the news or editing your wardrobe. What are you already as a human being doing everyday, eating? Do it better. Creating? Get a YouTube channel. Reading? That’s not a best-seller. Falling in love? Take this quiz to make sure you’re doing in a way that doesn’t royally fuck it up.

I’m just here to remind you; You do not need to be the best. That does not make you lazy, that does not make you aimless, that does not make you apathetic. You are allowed to be just good. Just okay. Just trying it out. Working on it. But you do NOT need to be, “the best.”

You don’t need to find a spot at the front of the room, you don’t need to be the first to raise your hand. You don’t need to feel guilty for eating feta, or not always buying Local. You don’t need to participate in every invitation, you don’t need to bite your tongue. You don’t need to be the life-of the party, you don’t need to be the perfect homemaker.

You are made up of more than every time someone told you, “good job.” You are made up of more than ever time you got a pay raise, every time you proudly picked up the check. You don’t owe the world being pretty every time you walk down the street or every time you enter the room. You are more than your compliments and your insults. You don’t have to be any amount of effort that isn’t natural to the flow of your heart and the rhythm it intuitively creates.

You are more than every rejection letter you’ve ever gotten and every, “it’s just not the right fit.” You are every “almost” and the multitude of hours, effort, hope and joy from each attempt that the “no,” is irrelevant.  

Last Fall when the guy said to you, “I don’t do things for women who are mediocre looking.” You didn’t need to be any more beautiful, any more charming or worthy of being in his presence. You are more than every time someone chose the other option, every time he/she “just wasn’t ready,” and every “It’s not really what I’m looking for.”  You are more than each time you’ve had 50+ hearts on a selfie with perfect lighting and he said you were the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. You are the accumulation of every first kiss, every time you showed up tugging your skirt or smoothing your hair hoping he would like you and every time you remembered it doesn’t matter who does if you don’t like you first. Of every time you woke up and realized, thank God I dodged that bullet. Of every time, it made your heart bigger than before.

You are the vulnerability, the willingness, the pureness of hope in things that you saw in movies and the fortitude to keep trying even though a tiny bluebird has never brought you your silk chiffon nightgown and a frog has never turned into a prince. You are the way you watched your Dad treat your mom, you are the things you know are amazing about yourself that you’re too afraid to say out loud.

You are the way you feel after you sweat, after you dance, after you hear your favorite song on the radio on a Friday afternoon. You are not the most beautiful and you are. You are not winning, but ya ain’t losing either. You know a little bit and want to know a little bit more. You are the best of intentions and sometimes it slipped your mind. But what you aren’t and shouldn’t be is; ashamed, guilty, convinced the [Life Hack], the [non-negotiable], the [alarm], the [new status] will make you any more whole, any more awesome, or any more worthy of good. Of great. Of happiness. Of love. Of validation. Of self-care and self-kindness. KINDNESS TO YOURSELF. Repeat it till ya get it. And again. No matter what you are killing it at and what you know you could, improve upon a bit, you deserve to treat yourself with kindness.

THE BEST is not a state of living; it is a moment, an experience, like all others that creates the fucking radical state of YOU.

We are doing are best, with what we’ve got. That’s the only kind of best you ever need to be.