A few years ago I met with two new patients who were scheduled back to back for initial diagnostic evaluations. As it happened, they represented the extreme ends of the intellectual spectrum: One was a bonafide genius, imported from abroad to participate in some cutting-edge research at a local University. The other suffered from a congenital disorder with secondary severe intellectual disability. The striking thing about meeting these patients was that the genius was doing painfully poorly in her pursuit of happiness, and the intellectually-disabled patient was doing remarkably well at it.
This brought to my attention an interesting aspect of the pursuit of happiness: It takes place on a level playing field. Any attribute that one might think would be advantageous turns out to make no difference (with the important exception of ‘temperament’ which is discussed elsewhere {thanks DH}). For example, IQ doesn’t make a difference: As illustrated by my two new patients, a genius can do poorly pursuing happiness and an intellectually disabled person can do very well at it.
Research indicates that the same applies to financial status. Multiple studies suggest that once survival needs are secured (i.e., once a person has the financial means to meet basic needs such as shelter, safety, food and clothing) money is not a predictive variable in the pursuit of happiness. These studies are in line with experience — I think most of us know (or at the very least, know of) someone wealthy who’s doing poorly in the pursuit of happiness and of someone (relatively) poor who’s doing very well at it.
This begs a question: Why do these factors not matter? What neutralizes the impact that differences in intelligence, wealth, education, occupation, physical abilities and social position could have on the pursuit of happiness?
I think that the answer is this: The efficacy of the pursuit of happiness is determined by how close one gets to doing the best they can do. To pursue happiness optimally, one must constantly do the best one can do. The key is that the best is a personal best: The best you can do.
If so then pursuing happiness, each of us is burdened by the same demand: To do our personal-best in all that we do. As such, this may be an unattainable goal, which is consistent with the definition of happiness as an (imaginable but) unattainable state. It is important to keep in mind that the pursuit of happiness is not a binary, all-or-nothing, proposition; rather, it unfolds on a continuum. Hence, the closer one gets to doing one’s best (at any given point and, by extension, accumulatively) the more rewarding and satisfying their pursuit of happiness becomes.
The qualifier ‘personal-best’ means that each of us has to do the best we can do with that which each of us has to work with — our unique, individual set of strengths and weaknesses. When one does the best one can do, their influence on the pursuit of happiness is optimal. Whether or not a different person (who may be better prepared, smarter, stronger, wealthier etc.) could do a better job under the same circumstances is completely irrelevant. The pursuit of happiness is neither comparative or competitive (actually, it is the opposite — it is collaborative, we are all in it together; more on this elsewhere). We need not be concerned with the relative quality of our performance. What matters, and therefore requires attention, is that ‘personal-best’, which is the target for each of us to aim for.
At first glance the idea of ‘doing one’s best’ may be perceived as vague, abstract, and therefore of little, if any, practical utility. Exploring this concept to a greater depth reveals it’s significant practical relevance and applicability to the pursuit of happiness. So here goes:
As we go about our lives, we go in and out of various roles. For example — earlier today (a Sunday) I was in my family-guy role; presently I’m in my writer role; later I will be in some other role — a friend or a neighbor; at some point I’ll be back in my family-guy role. Tomorrow I expect to spend a good number of hours in my psychiatrist role, and so on. In each one of these roles, there is a performance level that represents the best I can do; my aspiration is to get as close as I can to that ‘personal-best’.
To a runner, there is a speed and/or a distance that is the best he/she can do as a runner. To a weight-lifter, there is a weight that is the best he/she can do in that role. To a student, there is the best he/she can do in terms of time she can spend studying, content she can understand and master and ultimately, a GPA she can get, and so on.
Obviously, in some roles that ‘best’ is easier to define and measure, and in other roles the ‘best’ eludes definition and measurement. Furthermore, in all roles the ‘best’ is not a fixed point; it fluctuates over time. So, in effect, it is impossible to determine definitively what that ‘best’ is (interestingly, it is much easier to recognize when one’s performance is below their best than to definitively define that ‘best’). But, it doesn’t matter: It is not about knowing what your best is, it is about aspiring to approximate it. It is more important to ask yourself “Did I do the best I could have done?” then it is to answer it accurately. The answer becomes increasingly reliable with repetition.
The key is to maintain awareness of the relevance that doing your best has to the pursuit of happiness. At the risk of stating the obvious — an awareness of where you want to arrive greatly increases the likelihood that you will move in the right direction. Awareness of the importance of doing the best you can do supports the commitment to keep striving to do so.
Given that doing one’s best translates into an effective pursuit of happiness, it is reasonable to wonder how come we don’t automatically do so all the time? In part, that is because we typically make the (subconscious) assumption that we are doing our best. Doubtlessly, sometimes it is so, but only sometimes. Since assumptions are dangerous, deliberate exploration of the issue is worth the effort (which is the centerpiece of the practice presented here: https://wp.me/P7aKBB-Ci ). Developing a habit of checking whether or not we have actually been doing the best we can do through regular self-reflection is rewarding because it makes it possible to learn from experience. Improving one’s understanding of the circumstances that lead to knowingly making suboptimal choices offers the best chance of changing this costly proclivity moving forward. (Note that this refers to situations in which making the best choice is a realistic possibility, well within reach. That is, situations in which a lesser choice is made voluntarily and freely, not imposed by ignorance or lack of resources or skills.)
Identifying the circumstances that lead withholding doing our best invites a simple follow-up question — Why? Why did I not do the best I could have done? The answer to this question is not as ambiguous as it may seem because, for the most part, it falls into three categories:
The first category is lack of attention. The pace of modern-day life has most of us involved in multiple processes at a time, most of the time. Given that attention is finite, the greater the number of different things one attempts to pay attention to, the more likely some things are to escape attention. Doing the best you can do depends on a commitment to sustaining attention to the goings-on and to the importance of doing your best. Otherwise, it is easy to overlook the challenges (or opportunities) as they come up and choose either the first thing that comes to mind, or some habitual behavior instead of mindfully exploring the available options and choosing the best one available.
The lifestyle of monks and nuns (and others who are fully dedicated to a spiritual practice, regardless of the specific tradition) is uniquely conducive to the pursuit of happiness in part because of its simplicity. A simple lifestyle typically does not require a simultaneous participation in multiple processes which makes it possible to pay full attention to the single process one is involved with. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of maintaining a conscious awareness of — firstly, the moments in which choices are being made, secondly, the options available to choose from in each of these moments, and thirdly, the relevance of committing to the best one.
The second category is ‘ideological attachments’. An ‘ideologic attachment’ happens when the mind manufactures an ideology that serves as a permission to do less than one’s best, and then becomes attached to it as if it was an objective truth. In simpler terms — making excuses that justify not doing one’s best.
Analyzing the mental events preceding the conscious choice to do less than your best often reveals an internal “broadcast” that played in mind right before the lesser choice was made. The broadcast is of a statement that in “real-time” registers as unquestionably reliable (which is not surprising given the source — one’s own brain) but on examination is easily exposed as unfounded. For example, “I don’t feel like doing it” is often used as an acceptable reason to withhold doing one’s best. It is based on the fallacy that one has to “feel” a certain way in order to do the right thing or, conversely, that not “feeling” a certain way (e.g., energized, enthusiastic) is, in and of itself, a sufficient reason to stop short of doing the right thing. Other examples of similar “ideologies” that only serve as justifications for not doing one’s best are such statements as “I’ll get to it later”, “someone else will do it”, and “it’s not going to make a difference”.
Laziness, a universal stumbling block on the path to doing one’s best, is a case of ideologic attachment. The false-ideology broadcast behind laziness comes in three general flavors: (1) Inflation of the value of a present status-quo, making it seem as if doing one’s best would accrue an unaffordable loss (for example: “finally, I achieved this precious moment of sitting down in peace and quiet”) (2) Inflation of the magnitude of the effort required to do one’s best (for example: “Doing it is going to be way too hard to do”) and (3) Minimization of the likely reward for doing one’s best (for example: “It is not going to be worth the effort”).
For the most part, it is easy to expose the falsehood of such “ideologies”. A sincere reflection will typically reveal the statements and their purpose — to legitimize choosing a lesser option than doing one’s best.
The personal repertoire of these ideologies is essentially finite and, therefore, the same messages tend to be broadcasted repeatedly. It doesn’t take much practice to become familiar with one’s own “menu” of messages which makes it easier to catch their broadcast as it happens, in real-time. Identifying the fallacious nature of an internally broadcasted message as it plays in one’s mind offers the best defense — a fair chance of rejecting it in favor of making the right choice.
The third category is intoxications. An intoxication, by definition, prevents the intoxicated from doing the best that they can otherwise do. Regardless of the specific intoxication, from alcohol to heroin, this is indisputable. The fact that ‘internal’ intoxicants or ‘emotional intoxications’ can have the same effect is perhaps less well recognized.
Buddhist psychology considers six emotions as intoxicating: Hatred, Anger, Lust, Greed, Jealousy, and Arrogance. Intoxication by these emotions (which is essentially no different from intoxications by external chemicals) is guaranteed to cause a temporary inability to weigh one’s options mindfully, and obscure one’s best choices which is, of course, synonymous with preventing one from doing the best that they can do. Again, with practice, it is possible to improve one’s ability to recognize the threat of emotional intoxications early enough to do something about it. Again, awareness is a required precondition to intervene effectively to minimize the damage. For example, simply recognizing that one is angry can lead to a pause in choice-making until the intoxication wears-off and base-line mental faculties are reestablished (ideally, the recognition of one’s own intoxication leads to more than just a pause, i.e., to the initiation of a mindful detoxification-procedure).
Any practice that can improve your ability to do the best you can do deserves serious consideration. Developing the ability to routinely ask yourself, in real-time, before you commit to a choice “What is the best I can do?” has no downside. Sometimes it will be easy to answer the question with confidence, and other times the answer will be illusive and obscure. In some cases the answer will be specific, and in other cases it will be a range rather than a point. None of these permutations represent a problem. The primary important thing is to ask the question, answering it is of secondary importance. The reward for asking accumulates automatically with repetition — that is, with practice.
It is also important to remember that the best one can do is precisely that — no more and no less. The optimal pursuit of happiness never requires doing better than one’s personal best. Life (or Nature) always makes sense. The requirement to do better than one’s best is paradoxical; it does not make sense and therefore could not be imposed by life.
If participation in a process requires doing better than one’s best, then it simply will not happen. For example, playing in an NBA game requires a (much, much) better game than my best. Therefore, my participation as a player in an NBA game is guaranteed to never happen. Or, another, more “organic”, example — To sustain life the human heart needs to pump out at least 30% of the volume of blood in its ventricles with each squeeze (this is known as the ‘ejection fraction’). As long as a given heart is able meet or exceed this fraction, i.e., pump out 30% or more of the volume in the ventricles with each heartbeat, there is no problem — the best such a heart can do is good enough to continue participating in the process of life. However, if the best that a given heart can do is an ‘ejection fraction’ that is below 30%, the best that this heart can do is no longer good enough which manifests with a condition known as heart failure. If not corrected, it will be excluded from participating in the process of life and its owner will die.
In other words, the mere participation in a process is evidence that one’s best is good enough (to participate in that process). And to our point — if you are participating in the process of pursuing happiness, your best is good enough. Furthermore, since the pursuit of happiness will never require doing better than the best you can do, nailing it is, at least theoretically, possible.
Life always makes sense; people, not so much. Consequently, it is not rare for a person to demand of oneself (or of others) to do better than their best. Such a demand is irrational and costly. Overshooting a target is missing it just the same as undershooting it. Doing more is not the same as doing better. For example, moving heavy weights. When moving weights (for exercise or necessity) there is a point that marks one’s personal-best. It may be feasible to go beyond this point, to move more than the weight that constitutes one’s best. However, this risks an injury which, when happens, negates the value of the extra weight moved.
Life never demands doing better than one’s best, and it does not permit doing less than one’s best. Both pushing oneself to do more than one’s best, and allowing oneself to stop short of doing one’s best come with a price. The cost missing the target of doing your best may go unnoticed, but it’s always there. The mindful pursuit of happiness is founded on the aspiration to do no-more and no-less than the best one can do.
Perhaps sadly, doing your best does not guarantee that you will get what you want. The state of the pursuit of happiness, for each of us, at each moment, is determined by the ever-changing interplay of two forces — one is our doing — our influence (exerted via the choices we make and the way we implement them). The other is the universe’s influence which is not only outside our influence, in its complete form it is outside the reaches of human comprehension. Since the universe never ceases to exert its incalculable influence on our lives, realistically, doing your best is optimizing your part, but it’s just a part — so no guarantees. Perhaps not such a good deal, but it’s the only deal we’ve got.
That being said, there is a guaranteed reward for doing one’s best. Granted, it is not as sweet as a guarantee of getting what you want, but it is something (worth keeping in mind and claiming, when appropriate). The realistic guaranteed reward for doing the best you can do is the freedom from wondering about what life would have been like, had you done your best.
A common illustration of this is when athletes, following some competition, say that knowing they did their best (“didn’t leave anything on the court”, “gave it a 100% effort” etc.) is rewarding in-and-of itself, the outcome of the competition notwithstanding. An athlete who is aware of the fact that they did not do their best and lost is likely to be burdened by wondering about how things could have turned out had they given their full effort. This kind of wondering can have an obsessional quality — it can be difficult to stop and thus feel like a mental trap. Freedom from such gnawing, ruminative thinking is the guaranteed reward for the awareness of doing one’s best. It may not seem like much, but as all forms of freedom go, it is precious.
Doing one’s best all the time is not only a very tall order, arguably, it is unattainable by ordinary humans (certainly unattainable by this ordinary human). This is congruent with the unattainability of complete happiness (which is reserved for the fully enlightened). The good news is that a sincere aspiration counts: A solid commitment to doing your best doubtlessly has an inherent value in the pursuit of happiness. Doing ‘the best you can do’ is synonymous with making the best choices you can make, which underscores the critical importance of cultivating good-choice making skills. The Choice Making Theory ( http://wp.me/P7aKBB-pr ) and Practice ( http://wp.me/P7aKBB-6h ) sections address this and therefore are worth careful study as complementary material to this section.
Lastly — remember that doing the best you can do is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It’s on a dynamic continuum: The closer and the more often you get to doing your best, the more rewarding your pursuit of happiness will become (and vice versa). That, in my opinion, is more than enough of an incentive for a strong commitment to doing your best.