My Best Self

I heard a question today that made me really think. The question was this:

When were you your best self?

I guess I’m thrown by the question because, on the surface, it would seem a rather easy question. When was I the happiest? When was I the most successful? The most content?

But that isn’t the question, is it?

I wasn’t my best self at the happiest moments of my life. I was a bit naive, idealistic, and self-deceptive at the times I was the most content. Maybe those qualities were what lent to my ability to feel that way. I certainly wasn’t my best self at the times I had the most money, or had achieve some success in my career.

The answer was rather startling.

I began to be my best self when my life crashed down around me and all the things I once held most valuable had been evaluated and discarded as counterfeit. Each ripping away of my blinders as I lost my marriage, my home, my friends, my things…Each step down this miserable road ripped away the crutches that I’d accepted as normal, and made me decide what kind of person was I going to be. Awake or Asleep? Blind or With Eyes To See? Broken or Whole? Weak or Strong?

I am my best self right now. My life is not dulled by misunderstandings, self-deception, codependent behaviors, or complacency, and my faith can only reside in the Lord, and not in myself. Each day that I can find a way to control my reactions to a callous, blind world, I grow a little wiser. Every time I can laugh instead of cry, be calm instead of angry, I realize how far I’ve come since I first stepped into the life I’m in these days.

I am my best self right now, today; but I hope to become better.

I hope my best self is always in my future, and never in my past.

~ Bird