The World is Shifting- the Choice of What it Becomes is Ours

Someone shared this quote with me today, and it struck me as such a useful insight for times such as these:

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” — Maya Angelou

Short and sweet but filled with so much to digest:

Do: Action is better than inaction. Waiting until the perfect opportunity to act leaves many of us sitting on the coach watching Netflix. Getting started can be so hard- the pull of inertia is strong. But with trying we grow stronger.

…the best you can: one of my favorite expressions is “how you do anything is how you do everything”- demanding excellence of yourself in every circumstances is important. You can’t be both a slacker and an outperformer. We all have areas where we are gifted, but attempting to do our best is key.

…until you know better: we are all flawed human beings. Our best effort may yield poor results. We also judge others by their output that we may consider shoddy or wrong or misguided- but giving people the benefit of the doubt- that they may be doing the best they can with their information set- is also liberating. Forgiveness is an action that helps the forgiver more than the forgiven. Aging can also be a gift in that with the passage of time and more life experiences, we have the opportunity to know better- if we choose to. I am also struck at how bifurcated the news is today- where we consume news that reinforces our beliefs - but we need to push ourselves to really examine what we know — and challenge ourselves to try to understand why others may think differently.

Then when you know better, do better: we are all called to make the most of the gifts we have been given. We have all been endowed with unique abilities- all different- but the more we know, the more opportunities we have. Choosing proactively to do good things — building up rather than tearing down- is the way to deploy those new learnings in whatever areas we have chosen to dedicate our lives.

In many ways it feels like this world is shifting. We have a choice as to whether it is the pains of a caterpillar coming out of a cocoon and becoming a beautiful butterfly- or whether it is something more destructive. The choice is ours.