F*ck Your Best Self

It's not about being your best self, it's about being your true self.

Someone I worked with once suggested that I needed to write a book called, "Fuck Your Best Self" because I would often challenge the idea of the existence of a "best self" or of the "best version" of yourself. 

There is no separate self or version of you that excludes your "worst" parts. You contain all the good and all the bad parts of yourself at once. There are no "versions" of you that are "better" than another version as you contain all "versions" of your former self within you at any moment. 

How could you possibly separate your life experiences in a way that would exclude when you may not have behaved in the way you would have wanted? Those experiences were part of what helped you to make a different decision later on. Those former selves contain so many learning experiences that contribute to who you are today. Without them, you would be a different person.

Ultimately, your "best self" is just another form of perfectionism that exists only in your mind or in the mind of someone else, because that goal post is always moving and always out of reach. Can we do more in a day? Maybe. Could we make better choices for ourselves? Possibly. But we can also be doing our best at any moment and also know that improvement is possible.

I have often said that to get close to "perfect" one would need unlimited resources and unlimited unencumbered time. Even people with both have acknowledged that it is an impossible state. There is no "leaning in" to multiple areas of your life to be 100% in all of those areas at once. It's not only impossible, but a terribly cruel thing to ask of yourself. 

As I saw on a TikTok: 100%? That's a WHOLE you!

Instead, is there space for you to accept all of who you are, without judgment? To recognize that intimately understanding yourself (your best and worst) is part of being able to make the best choices for your life in the moment.