Just One More Agreement!

There is just one more agreement, but it is the one that makes the other three become ingrained habits in our lives. The fourth agreement is about the action of the first three: Always do your best.

Some children are lucky to hear this as they grow up. That is their parent’s standard and expectation. It is great to bring home straight A’s or Championship medals, or 1st in show. Yet it is a greater incentive to actually try to do our best when we know we will be complimented on doing it, not frowned upon for being judged less than another in achievement.

Don Miguel Ruiz tells us to do our best under any circumstances, no more and no less. He also advises us to remember our best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next. Everything is alive and changing all the time. Sometimes our best will be high quality; other times, not so much.

Your best will be different when you are healthy as opposed to when you are sick. In your everyday moods, your best can change from one hour to the next, from one day to the next.

Regardless of the quality, keep doing your best. I remind myself often of this when there is a struggle involved in doing my best; like when I am tired, especially when I am tired. Or when anger raises its ugly head, it requires an internal dialogue with myself that the goal right here and now is to do my best, no more or no less. Talking to myself, at this time, seems to help.

Doing your best helps you learn to accept yourself. You can quiet down the inner judge and critic a bit if you, yourself, hold yourself to the standard of doing your best. This helps you also be aware of your mistakes and learn from them. Learning from your mistakes is not as difficult when you are not ashamed of them.

If you are always trying to do your best, your mistakes are not usually the gigantuan ones that bring shame upon you. They are simply mistakes, errors of judgment, unthoughtful words or actions. You can correct these mistakes many times with a ready apology and get on with living.

You do the best you can all the time because doing your best makes you happy! When you are doing your best just for the pleasure of  doing it, you are taking action because you enjoy taking the action.

That’s what Forrest Gump did. He didn’t have any great ideas., but he took action (and he was impeccable with is word which is the first agreeement).  He was happy because he always did his best at whatever he did. He was richly rewarded without expecting any reward at all. Expressing what you are is taking action.

“God is life. God is life in action. The best way to say ‘I love you , God’ is to live your life doing your best. The best way to say ‘Thank  you, God,’ is by letting go of the past and living in the present moment,” right here and right now. Whatever life takes away from you, let it go. When you surrender and let go of the past, you allow yourself to be fully alive in the moment. Letting go of the past means you can enjoy the dream that is happening right now.”  (pp. 83-84) The Four Agreements, A Toltec Wisdom Book by Don Miguel Ruiz, Amber-Allen Publishing.