Perfect Effort

     As I was walking to church today and thinking about life and how I wanted to change and not be so critical of myself I had this thought: "98% of the time I can't get perfect results, but I can give perfect effort."

     For most of my life I have held very high expectations of myself.  I often compared myself to others and was also critical of others.  It wasn't really that I meant to be offensive or thought that the person was doing a bad job I would just think how they could do it better.  I have a very analytic  mind and it is natural for me to see something or someone and take it apart in my mind, either to see how it works or how to make it better. (I often take real things apart to see how they work as well.  I'm a stereotypical engineer)
 
     Being so critical of myself and expecting perfection of myself has led to lots of pain for me.  I was a perfectionist and it was hurting me.  I should say is hurting me because it is still something I am working on.  This last week has been really hard for me and I have been struggling to be happy instead of focusing on the negative aspects of my life.  I decided that I should try to worry more about the effort I am putting into something and make sure I am simply doing my best at it, regardless of how it turns out.

     Its good to reach for the stars and to try to be the best I can, but not when it damages me.  My branch president encouraged me to simply let go.  He said I should go float on a river and just let the river take me wherever it wanted to go, but to do that with my mind.  He said it is good that my mind works the way it does, but I don't have to be that way all the time.  Sometimes I need to just go with the flow.

     In the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible it says "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."  There are times that I need to use my mind's full capacity and work as hard as I can, and there are other times that I need to slow down and not worry.

     I need to recognize that some things really don't matter in the long run and just go with whatever sounds good at the time, enjoy the moment, and then move on.  There are also some things that I can't do anything about so I need to just let them go and not worry.

     Some day I, and every other person, will be perfect in all things, but in the mean time I just need to try my best no matter the outcome, and be happy with life.