Professionally and personally, I see a lot of self-pandering to one’s own feigned victimhood. I
expect if from some people. I can’t abide it from others that fall for the okey doke and then
promote it and try to convert others into supporting a would-be victim’s woe-is-me-isms.
Money loaned, never to be repaid. Favors done, never to be reciprocated and a whole lot of
empty words. I’m just sayin’ all the stuff that needs to stop being said.

Doing the Best…

“He’s doing the best he can.”

Bullshit.

We don’t all do the best we can. While I’m not asinine to expect we are all able to do our very
best every day, rather, I pose that we are (at most times) capable and choose not to.

However you define ‘best’ (as it relates to dealing with challenging situations or circumstances),
let’s admit that sometimes we assert ourselves in mediocrity – purposely. Don’t get me wrong,
sometimes folks are truly doing the best they can with what they have. My argument here is
that we’re not always at our best and willfully so.

Sometimes we do the worst we can cause we don’t feel like doing our best. Sometimes it’s not
about lack of capability to learn or be open. Its flat out obstinance and/or procrastination. Both
of which I’m certainly guilty of, at times.

I’m not talking momentary deviations in character here though. Doing the best you can requires
a commitment to continuous self-improvement. It doesn’t mean you don’t waiver but, when
the inevitable deviation happens, you get up, dust off and course-correct.

However, some of us knowingly don’t do our best as a career and get passes for it. I’m talking
about those who choose to gear the whole of their existence in unprogressive negativity. An
investment in victimhood because accountability and evolvement are too cumbersome, not
because they’re incapable. Rather, it’s a concerted effort to NOT do their best or even a little
better.

Doing the best you can does NOT mean being a constant fuck up to yourself and others and
leaning into a (false) sense of victim mentality and stagnated existence into primarily self-made
obstacles. Add to this the manipulated, would-be cheerleaders chanting “They’re doing the best
they can”, and it’s a recipe for cultivated victimhood stagnation.

Don’t help folks cook this shit up.

I’m not saying go hard on someone, that rarely helps either.

Let’s think before we dole out “best they can” passes. Reserve those precious words for folks
actually tangibly doing their best at being just a bit better.

When You Know Better, You Do Better

Sometimes.

In theory, yes. In every day practice, most times.

There are times I’m short tempered, impatient and wholistically obstinate – and all throughout
my various contradictions, I know better. Clearly, this is not me doing better.

For many personalities, knowing better and not doing better is a way of living, by design.

Recall as a kid when you’d do something you knew you weren’t supposed to do, but did it
anyway? Over and over again. The same premise applies as an adult. You know you’re on a
tight budget and that your money goes farther at Trader Joe’s, but you keep going to Whole
Foods anyway. Lyin’ to yourself every grocery trip about that Prime membership discount and
how it’s going to “even out.” Yeah, sure.

Again, momentary lapses in character are not what I’m referring to. Patterns of behavior are
what I’m talking about. A pattern of knowing better but willfully not doing better in your life is
indicative of a need to chart a course in internal regrouping and rebuilding.

Not easy. I know.

Knowing and doing better in most areas of our lives takes time and practice.

However, just because it’s (sometimes) hard, doesn’t mean you deserve sympathy for choosing
to continue to stay broke when you keep going to Whole Foods.

I Pulled Myself Up by My Bootstraps

This is a lie.

None of us gets anywhere alone. Whether we get there by Uber, nepotism or sheer dumb luck,
it’s rarely, if ever alone. Yes, we work hard and put in tons of effort towards our goals but those
goals are not met in a vacuum.

I hear this bootstraps BS said often in the company of other entrepreneurs. The #hustle culture
we live (not thrive) in promotes this fallacy of you can do it all by yourself. To this I say:

• Someone else had to edit and likely publish your book after you wrote it for it to
become the bestseller it is
• Someone else had to retain your services before you got that first client after you honed
your skills working for someone else in a firm
• Someone else, an angel investor gave you start up money so you could finally pay
yourself

These are not solitary actions. No sir. When you started, you didn’t even have enough to buy
yourself boots let alone pull yourself up.

This also applies to health and wellness. On both sides of my family there’s a history of
alcoholism. Not one of my family members in recovery did it alone. Not one. For sure it was
their hill to climb, but trust and believe they were pushed and pulled to the mountain top with
all manner of spiritual, physical and/or monetary support.

So, folks, do the best you can by knowing better than trying to pull yourself up by your
bootstraps cause it’s literally impossible. I’m sure I missed a few other BS-promoting sayings
because there’s so many. Please feel free to share them with me in the comments.