I think in the past I’ve thought that doing your best simply meant giving full effort to a task. That completely neglects the use of judgment in the process. Just following the first would mean that you would sprint a marathon, run as fast as possible the entire way; full effort, not much judgment. I probably need to start consciously exercising my judgment and integrating it into what I mean when I do my best.
2 thoughts on “Doing My Best”
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not quite a parallel, but i recently came across and enjoyed bill mcdonough’s cautioning that we not prize effectiveness without mindfulness: “An efficient Nazi is simply a more tragic Nazi,” he says. “Efficiency itself is not good.”
one of the most difficult things to do is to decide to drop out of that marathon at mile 21, but what if you’re excessively injuring yourself, or…?
i guess it’s still about prizing the long(er) view, and constantly re-evaluating.
Yeah, I can’t chuck ethics out of the equation either, although that’s probably a separate step. I’m not sure if the ethical evaluation qualifies as a priori or a posteriori in terms of the action itself. Probably a integrali…
Like you said, constant reevaluation.
That tired dog cliché “Work smarter not harder” is basically what I’ve said here. Not very original, maybe, but a new iteration makes it a bit more mindful to me at least.