CHALLENGE YOURSELF - PERSONAL BEST

I am going to surprise you today. I am going to admit that my life has not been perfect. I however, am not surprised. 

Several months ago, I stated that I believed that lifelong learning is one of the reasons why we are alive and that I expected always to be learning however long I lived. I realize that I still believe that today.

I never had any illusions that I was perfect and because of this I consider myself a very fortunate person. Even better, by the time I had reached my mid 20's I realized that there were some things I was never going to be very good at. 

For example, most of the sciences were, and remain, terra incognita, to me. I accept also that I probably will never be either a great athlete or a wonderful dancer, except in my dreams.

These areas, which I admit are not ones in which I excel at and which I accept as, either difficult or impossible for me, have made it possible for me to recognize that other people have abilities different from mine. Different, but not necessarily better. 

The things I do well on the other hand, are where I both excel and compete. The competition is with myself. The words 'personal best' ensure that there will always be a challenge for me, but it is with myself.

What I learned from these two things, that I am not perfect and to accept that I have my own strengths and weaknesses, has made it possible to live a pretty good life.

Knowing I am not perfect, means that sometimes I will make a mistake. When I make a mistake, I accept that it is a mistake and not my whole life. Usually I try and correct the mistake, and move on. Although this is not always right away, I moved ahead as soon as I can. The reason I do this, is that a mistake is not going to change my whole life.

Because I recognize that I have some things I do well and I have a goal to keep learning, both from the good things I accomplish AND from the mistakes that I make, I find it easier to correct the mistakes I can, accept that some things have to be forgiven AND forgotten, and move forward.

I am no different than anybody else, except that I am comfortable not being perfect. I expect to always be working on improving myself. I accept that this will probably be a lifelong process. I think this is not so bad.

Like you, I put one foot in front of the other to get where I am going. The best thing is that I know that as long as I am willing to get up and put one foot in front of the other, I am probably going to get somewhere. 

With a bit of luck and some planning, it will be somewhere interesting and I will learn something new.