Doing More Than Your Best

Some pieces of advice drive me absolutely insane. People tell me to “be myself”. What the hell does that mean? Was I being someone else prior to them dropping this wonderfully insightful nugget of knowledge? It’s a fairly useless piece of advice, and it’s only a single example, perhaps one of the most egregious.

What about “do your best”? I even succumb to this one, encouraging people to do their best. Everyone knows to give things their all and try their very hardest. To insinuate that someone wouldn’t know that is almost demeaning.

A notoriously quotable speaker like Churchill would never make the mistake to tell someone to do their best. Not only does he know how ridiculous this advice is, he goes further, extending the command to something much more useful and compelling: “It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required”.

While it may sound absurd at first glance, Churchill’s quote carries a much deeper meaning than the initial cognitive dissonance portrays. When I first read this quote, I thought Churchill might have drank too much scotch and lost some of his eloquence. However, further analysis sheds more light on the meaning.

Sometimes, we need to do our best. Granted, throughout life, we often don’t put 100% effort into things, let alone 110% that mathematically inept motivators encourage, but I digress. I have often given into doing the bare minimum to get by as opposed to thriving and really dedicating myself entirely to something.

Churchill points out that sometimes, doing the best simply isn’t enough. Sometimes we need to dig deep down inside ourselves, and do that which we didn’t think we could. We must push ourselves past what we can do. By operating outside our abilities, we develop the capabilities required and extend our own limits.

There are extraordinary circumstances in which the best just simply isn’t enough. There are times when we need to do far more than our best, the most notable example of which I can think of being serving in the military. For many, it’s more than what they thought they could do. However, in the spirit of service and duty, people can extend their bests. It is possible to dig deep and sacrifice for one’s country to do more than one’s best – to do what is required.

                  

Photo Courtesy of Lockheed Martin

It seems illogical, I will cede that fact. But if we only ever did our best, how would our best ever get any better? If I ran a mile at a certain pace every single time I ran, I would never get any faster. I’d have to extend myself outside of my comfort zone, outside of my capabilities, to extend the range of my “best”. While this is a much less powerful example, it dispels the logical issues with this quotation.

Sometimes, doing your best is enough. In some unique situations, it isn’t. Sometimes we need to do more than our best, and we need to do what is required. Extend yourself, branch out, push your limits, exceed your boundaries, and do what is required.

Changing Often isn't Enough

I hope, by now, you’ve recognized Churchill’s distinct style. Not only is he a uniquely witty and quotable speaker, but he also implements a similar structure throughout his most pithy sayings. The vast majority are two clauses: the first, a compelling statement in and of itself, the second, a resounding response to the call of the first claim. This week’s quote is no exception to that rule.

The first clause this time is “To improve is to change”. Fairly straightforward if you ask me; when humankind stagnates, we fall short. In order to get better, we need to mix things up. People have a tendency to get into ruts, and Churchill points out that in order to ever get better, to ever reach some higher plateau, we must challenge ourselves and evolve.

Now the concluding clause is less of a poignant corollary and more of an impactful generalization: “To be perfect is to change often”. Changing merely yields improvement; if you are one of the many perfectionists out there (there a surprising number of closet perfectionists in this world, but I digress), seek out change. Seek it out frequently, and go further than improvement to perfection.

Change is hard for people. Especially for me, change is one of the hardest things there is to handle and to learn to cope with. It is a natural, inherent predilection of people to seek consistency. Our brains are really just super fancy pattern recognition machines. When the body senses a pattern, it is put to ease. Our biological tendency is to seek out these patterns, and without them, life can be jarring.

Thus, a break in the pattern that the mind has some accustomed to experiencing can be a very difficult situation to cope with. However, when it comes down to success, motivation, and self-betterment, we must change, and not only change, but change often.

Reading this quote on one of the many compilations of Churchill’s quotes that I foraged through, I gave it no second thought. From a high level, my thought process was similar to “That’s dumb. I hate change. What’s the next quote?”. As someone who has never done well coping with change, my initial reaction was to discount the quote immediately. I’m sure many of your reactions are the same.

Don’t, however, let Churchill’s call for change discourage you. Think back to the times when you’ve truly thrived and accomplished the most. For me, it’s when I changed. Without that change, I’d merely have been surviving, I wouldn’t have been living. It takes that moxie and bravado to really get somewhere. To have the guts to change is hard.

Specifically in my life, I’ve undergone changes that made my life significantly harder, but vastly improved myself. Developing clubs, shaping my high school curriculum to my own needs, and involving myself extra-curricularly here at Penn State have all been challenging changes that are crucial to my improvement. Once I got in a slight rut, I knew I needed to step outside of it and did so in pledging a business fraternity, what seems like it could be a wildly helpful (albeit time-sapping) endeavor. Listen to Churchill. Change will help you improve yourself. In order to really strive for perfection, keep changing.

Make a Life, Not a Living

Churchill has thus far been pretty consistently changing my mind about the way I live my life. Every quotation I’ve reviewed, with perhaps one or two exceptions, has been a unique perspective on life or a commentary on the human condition. Yet again, Churchill provides a witty aphorism that elicits thought from the reader as he criticizes the way many people live their lives.

In this week’s Churchill quote, he points out a discrepancy between making a living and making a life. Most people plan their college career in an attempt to lock-up a high paying future job that will ensure financial stability; many college students equate this well-off situation with happiness or success in life. Churchill, however, makes the compelling point that “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give”. As always, analyzing each clause separately will serves us best.

First, Churchill makes it clear that making a living is simply based off of what we get in life. Be in dollar bills or what have you, making a live simply boils down to receiving some sort of compensation, monetary or otherwise. To most, this statement could be the end all be all. Making a living is what we get. Check-mark, move on, that’s true. However, Churchill goes on to foil this point with a more powerful one.

Churchill contrasts making a living with making a life. He says that making a life comes down to what we give, not what we get. Here is the focal discrepancy – getting is making a living, but giving is where we can really make a life. Now the immediate thought this evoked for me was charity. And that is part of it, but simply giving your money/time away to philanthropic organizations does not fully encapsulate the spirit of Churchill’s words.

In a quotation similar to the beliefs of famed investor Warren Buffet to give away huge portions of his income, Churchill implicitly states that making a living is in no way making a life. He points out that getting money is great and all, and will make you a living, but it’s not how you make a life. It gets your through the day from paycheck to paycheck, an expression often used with the poor but that can be applied to the wealthy if they live a life focused on wealth. However, Churchill believes that this kind of life isn’t the one we should strive to live.

We make a life, truly, by what we give. Be it money to the poor, time to the people who we care about, love to those closest to us, or a host of other things we can give away, this is where life is truly made. For me, I’ve always been someone to focus on making a living, looking ahead to what I can get rather than what I can give. It would behoove me, as it would behoove each and every one of you, to listen to Churchill, yet again. Make a life by what you give. Give love, time, effort, empathy, sympathy, care, consideration, and compassion. You just might get it back. Make a life, don’t make a living.

Who Cares about the Glass?

Pessimism vs. optimism has always been a constant issue amongst people, striving to delineate between the two and the ramifications of each. Is the glass half full or half empty? Schoolchildren are asked this seemingly silly question in an attempt to determine their way of thinking. I can remember being asked this question as a kid myself, and I thought it was so incredibly absurd. It’s a glass of water, who cares how full it is? Or empty. Whatever.

Image courtesy of Ansy Wong

Taking a slightly different approach than the fullness or emptiness of a glass, Churchill’s next quote analyzes it in a fresh way: “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”. The initial poetic nature of the juxtaposition of difficulty in opportunity and then the inversion of these ideas creates a stunning first impression of the quote. A further analysis of the information encapsulated in this brief quote only deepens the meaning of it.

As always, a linear and sequential analysis will serve best. First, Churchill observes that “a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity”. At every turn, a pessimist finds difficulty. There is always a reason not to do something; there is always some obstacle that is an adequate excuse for bailing on some task or reneging on some commitment. This ideology is representative of a pessimistic philosophy – the negatives will always persist.

Looking at the second clause of the quote, Churchill contrasts the pessimistic perspective with the optimistic one: “an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”. The philosophy is different, but the words are the same, simply inverted. Both see the same reality through different lenses, and that’s why they can use the same words in characterizing their experiences. For the optimist, there is an opportunity in every difficulty. There will be issues, there will be problems, but there is always a way to grow, develop, and learn. To be an optimist is to (clichély) look on the bright side of things. This philosophy allows for one to create a much more involved and useful life. The ability to find the opportunity, to not be stymied by the difficulty, is an invaluable skill.

In my own personal life, I am generally a pessimist and a cynic, but I have experienced both sides of Churchill’s quote. As a generally pessimistic person, I find the difficulty in certain opportunities. For example, I get so absurdly many emails from Schreyer. I see each opportunity listed in the list-servs and notifications and updates and reminders, and I immediately find a way to rationalize passing up on the opportunities. I have a lot of homework, I need to catch up on sleep, or (more candidly) Netflix is calling my name. I do however, have moments of optimism that can trump my negativity. One example of finding the opportunity in a difficulty is some of the huge time commitment that is required for pledging Alpha Kappa Psi, a business fraternity here at Penn State. The difficulty is present in the time and effort required, but the opportunities are phenomenal – professional development, social bonding, and all sorts of connections and the like.

No matter if you’re a pessimist or an optimist, think about Churchill’s words. I’m sure they apply in some way to each and every one of us. Strive to think like the optimist, even if you’re a cynically negative person like me. Turning away from opportunities because of a tendency to see difficulty deprives you of your potential. Strive to see the opportunities. Make Churchill proud.