30 Days of Gratitude -- Life Lessons from the kids

Our printer is out of ink, has been for a while. Kaede has the share fair coming up and because of the no printing problem she was hand writing the answers to her questions. She was overwhelmed and near meltdown over it needing to be written neatly. 

I told her that yes she could do it. No one expected it to be perfect just that she did her very best, even though it was hard. Her best would be good enough and no one would require more. 

Then came the lightbulb moment with the strength of flipping on the over head lights in a patient room at 3 am while they are sleeping. No one requires me to be perfect, just to do my best and try my hardest, even when it's difficult and I'm overwhelmed. Kaede's handwritten answers aren't as perfect as a typed copy and that's okay. She took her situation, her mountain and did her best. She pushed herself to do more than she thought she could. 

I can see it being easy to blur the line between complacent and accepting less than perfection, but I believe if we are always doing our best and trying our hardest that complacency won't be a problem because hard things done repeatedly become easier and the bar for 'hard' is set a little higher.