As a progressive, I believe there are many names for God and many ways to God; this article reflects one of those ways. Take from here what works for you. Celebrate life with joy and peace!
Today we come to the fourth and final agreement of Don Miguel Ruiz’s book of practical wisdom called, The Four Agreements. These are powerful, life-changing agreements. They are as powerful as we strive to live them.
Let’s review:
Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
And the fourth agreement, according to Don Miguel Ruiz, “is the one that allows the other three to become deeply ingrained habits.”
Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
Always do your best; now that rolls off our tongues easily. It almost seems too simple, too easy.
When I hear the advice to always do your best, I hear the give it your 110 percent pep talk. Doing your best seems to suggest over-achieving constantly, going above and beyond all the time, reaching and maintaining a really high standard of excellence in results, not letting anything or anyone get in the way of reaching a goal.
It’s either that or it gets used in the exact opposite way, where, “do your best” is what you might say to someone who’s about to get clobbered in a sporting event, or to someone who’s not prepared to take a test, or going into any situation where failure is more or less expected. “Do your best!” sometimes sounds like, “Oh well.”
But this fourth agreement isn’t about such extreme thinking. “Always do your best” is about choosing to take action first and foremost, not for a result, but because there is value in taking the action in the first place.
Listen to what Don Miguel Ruiz says, “Doing your best is taking an action because you love it, not because you’re expecting a reward. Most people do exactly the opposite; they only take action when they expect a reward, and they don’t enjoy the action. For example, most people go to work every day just thinking of payday, and the money they will get from the work they are doing. They are working for the reward, and as a result they resist work. They try to avoid the action and it becomes more difficult, and they don’t do their best. They work all week long, suffering (through) the work, suffering the action, not because they like to, but because they feel they have to.”
Anytime we do something, including trying to live up to these four agreements, if we do it expecting a particular result, we’re not as likely to actually be doing our best because we’re so focused on what hasn’t happened yet. Instead of being fully present and engaged in the present moment we are looking for some kind of hopeful outcome.
Don Miguel Ruiz uses the illustration of Forrest Gump as the model for what he means by “doing one’s best.” Forrest wasn’t very smart, wasn’t very goal-oriented, but everything he did – ping-pong, fighting in Vietnam, mowing the lawn, running, playing football – he did as best as he could, and he was so present in the doing of the task that good and beautiful things always seemed to follow him.
So then, why would we do our best if it’s not for a certain result or a reward? If we do our best, we are fully living each moment; we are not dreaming of the future before it gets here and missing what’s happing right now. And, if we do our best in each present moment, and the result is not good, we also aren’t filled with regret. Why? Because we know we did our best.
Rev. J.B. Lee says, “Doing our best in the present releases us from remorse and sorrow about the past and from thirsting for (some) reward in the future.”
Don Miguel Ruiz would say that we do our best because when we do, we are fully engaging life; we are actually living it, instead of silently suffering through it. When we change our thinking about “doing our best” from an obligation to an opportunity, we can learn to love anything and everything we’re doing.
According to the fourth agreement, to always do your best, is the way to be content in every moment.
Despite our natural urge to look ahead to reward, or to get hung up on past mistakes or hurt, we’re invited to experience joy and confidence by doing our best, right now, in the moment to moment no matter what we’re doing.
And when we are free from worrying about results or rewards, it will help us make and keep the other three agreements. Don Miguel Ruiz writes, “The first three agreements will only work if you do your best. Don’t expect that you will always be able to be impeccable with your word. Your routine habits are too strong and firmly rooted in your mind. But you can do your best. Don’t expect that you will never take anything personally; just do your best. Don’t expect that you will never make another assumption, but you can certainly do your best. By doing your best, the habits of misusing your word, taking things personally and making assumptions will become weaker and less frequent with time. You don’t need to judge yourself, feel guilty or punish yourself even if you still make assumptions, still take things personally and still are not impeccable with your word.”
We don’t need to judge ourselves when we can’t do them all, or do them perfectly, because what God cares most about is the trying. Simply do your best.
Rev. Dan Koeshall is the senior pastor at The Metropolitan Community Church (The Met), 2633 Denver Street, San Diego, California, themetchurch.org. Services every Sunday at 9 and 11 a.m.
