DO YOUR BEST WORK, OR DO BETTER WORK

Your best work is your calling card, the thing that best identifies you.

But doing your best is a tricky proposition, especially if your best work was an accident.

It happens online all the time.

Some twitter user with a few hundred fans posts what they think is their usual tweet, but it strikes a chord and goes viral.

Now they are identified by that?

Nothing else changes and everyone moves on, but the person who posted is still baffled by the twitter reaction.

I’ll take the view right here that a tidal wave response to an innocuous post is not the hook to hang your hat on.

It may not be your best work, but it could be an inspiration to do better?

Best vs Better

Being at your best consistently takes lots of work.

Consider the Academy Awards where people used to be at their best until the words heard around the world, but paused in America:

“Keep my wife’s name out your f#cking mouth.”

To make sure Chris Rock got the message, Will Smith said it twice in his ‘outdoor voice.’

That was not Smith’s best work, but Rock is right there with his response.

No one could have predicted the slap, but if Rock had had the instinct to feel what was coming he would have launched a double leg takedown right there on stage and turned the corner.

He was the smaller man and Smith left a lot of leg unprotected.

2

I heard a basketball coach say during his March Madness run: “Some players don’t want to fight, some will fight, and some come looking for a fight. And those are the guys I recruit.”

That was Shaheen Holloway of the Saint Peter’s Peacocks from Jersey City, New Jersey.

He did his best work for his team this year.

Looking for a good fight is a motto to live by.

Expecting Your Best Work From Yourself?

The top image is the stage inside the Gerding Theater in Portland.

August Wilson’s Gem Of The Ocean was doing a matinee show.

On the drive in my wife and I talked about doing your best for everything you do.

From what I heard, she was seeing things from a management point of view; mine was from the workers.

“You can’t do your best work in a collaborative effort if you’re better than everyone else. You don’t want to overshadow the others,” was my union point of view.

Don’t make the other guys look bad, so gauge your effort toward that.

But she said it doesn’t matter about anyone else, just do your best.

I countered with, “If you are on a crew and your best is below the rest of the crew, then things change.”

“Okay, expert, what changes?”

“You’d get fired.”

From what happened next you’d have thought I fired her right then and there.

“It’s up to the individual to do their best at what they’re doing.”

From a personal point of view, I agreed, and hoped the play we were about to see brought out every actor’s best effort.

Before Gem Of The Ocean, A Starbuck’s Snack

The problem with a 2 p.m. show was lunch. It’s either a late lunch, early dinner, or a snack.

While my wife went inside the Starbuck’s across the street from Powell’s, I talked to a street vendor with a stack of Street Roots.

Was he unhoused? He was.

Did he have his ‘people?’ No, he didn’t.

Was there one phone number he could call if he had to? He did.

“But I don’t call them when I’m on the street because I don’t want them to worry.”

Did he have a relationship? No, but he did have an ex-wife and kid who went to court for two and a half years to make the break right.

What was the most important part of helping people get off the street?

“It’s all about housing and healthcare. That’s it.”

What about mental health and jobs?

“That folds into everything happening, but it’s about housing and healthcare. I’ve got mental health issues, health issues, and housing insecurity that all create more mental health issues.”

Do you have people who would help you up if you fell?

“That’s not the way it works on the street. If someone saw me down, the first thing they’d do is rob me.”

The Hardships Of Life Is Life With Your Best Work

From Portland in 2022, to Pittsburgh in 1904, the time passed in a flash.

Once the lights went down and the stage lit up, we were transported to a time and place just before The Great Migration.

The older characters had been slaves in the South. During the Civil War they showed the Union forces the same routes they used to avoid capture on the Underground Railroad.

It was a riveting story of a social system bringing its weight down on the innocent, where the law was carried out by familiar faces instead of the anonymous law enforcement officers.

The painful story of racial oppression, with one side ruled by God’s word, the other by man’s law, and both sides familiar with the same book, the Bible, is as relevant today as it ever was.

Did the actors deliver their best work? I’m wondering how it could have been better.

Your best work should be so good. My best work should be so good.