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Home  |  Flourishing in Life  | Human Growth  | We Try

We Try

BY: T. Franklin Murphy | February 2018
Doing the Best we can
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There's no perfect pattern. Life can be lived many ways. The complexities of living invade, confuse, and misdirect. So we just do the best we can.
As humans, we never achieve the perfectly ideal life. There are always a few missing pieces, areas of weakness. We have limited energy, time and resources. We can only focus attention to limited areas, creating a necessity for trade-offs. We design our lives with trade-offs, choosing to refine one area and neglect another. Each healthy life has its own characteristics, created from a series of choices directing efforts. Even the following proven strategies for flourishing, we stumble. We will attend to some advice and neglect others. We try; and keep trying. But the imperfectness of complexity occasionally annoys, angers and saddens; perhaps normal reactions to bothersome reality of imperfection where slips and stumbles are normal. We work through the struggles refining are responses and improving our successes.
#effort #success #flourishinglife 
Often writings on well-being point to an ideal—a specific points. An idea singled out and examined. A brief consideration of a single fact of living. Scientific experiments, examining a theory, eliminates the other contributing factors that may convolute the results. Life, conversely, always includes contributing factors. Our personal experience may seemingly contradict proven paths to heath; but exceptions don’t disprove; we just are missing the host of influencers in the equation. Instead, exceptions highlight complexity, trade-offs and other participating factors—the ninety-year old great uncle who smokes a pack a day doesn’t prove that cigarettes are healthy.
Few behavior studies give absolute answers. The results are measured in correlations. The study illuminates a correlation between a specific action and the consequence. If scientific experiments, meticulously constructed, can vary because of the unintended inclusion of unknown factors, our personal experiences, muddied with life, can easily mislead, thwarting clear guidance, unmasking connections between action and reward. We must actively seek or we will never find.
 
Personal assessments easily sway to conform to our biases, shaping perceptions to fit what we expect. With genetic predispositions and hidden biases, we swing the mallet to shape our lives. While life is difficult and the plan vague, change is still possible. We can transcend our surrounding environments, shine light on misperceptions and even work around limiting genetics.  But like keeping a misaligned car in the lane, as soon as our hand is off the wheel, the car drifts. We modify behaviors against inclinations, continually grappling with our nature. Over time new habits can form, the pull weakens, and we create new standards and trajectories. But even then, the nasty residues from our past reemerges and disrupts plans. The process of change requires patience, self-compassion, and courage to fight through these givens of humanity.
"We can transcend our surrounding environments, shine light on misperceptions and even work around limiting genetics."
Some feelings, engrained deep in our hearts, may always exist, sparking over-reactions to miniscule events; but to us—when tender spots are poked, the events are never small. We can live with these personal sensitivities. We can accept them. Through acceptance of these emotions, they lose some sting but will still trigger emotions and demand action. Knowing that our feeling experience may misdirect action from desired paths, we stay strong. Instead of being burdened to correct misguided emotions, we identify constructive action and do it. We just try, continually trying to live, enjoy and experience life, incorporating a few new behaviors, witnessing a few miracles, and engaging with a few others. We do the best that we can.
 
The few new behaviors we introduce positively impact our futures—not immediately and not dramatically; but they do, slowly accumulating, and pushing us forward. Right action doesn’t relieve all pains but does increase good moments while diminishing the bad.
 
We stagger in the dark to find something better. We see light in the distance, learning from the knowledge of others. Wisdom gives us a general direction; a loving companion holds our hand and we proceed forward. And when the inevitable trips and stumbles scrape our knees and discourage our souls, we can slow down, look at the stars and marvel at this fantastic, dreadful and breathtaking experience of living.
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FLS Link. Self-forgiveness: Genuine self-forgiveness is a process of accepting responsibility, working through the emotions, repairing damage, and recommitting to values.
FLS link. Self-Sabotage: We hurt ourselves. We sabotage healthy endeavors to escape the discomfort of change, settling back into our self-made prisons of stagnation.
We protect our futures through improving thought and improving actions.
FLS Link. Contemplating Change: The contemplation stage of change is more than what we think, it is how we think, expanding our view, dismantling excuses, and building motivations.
Our plans are disrupted. Circumstances interfere with our intentions. Life will always intrude, demanding adjustments and reconciliations.
Life can be challenging. But we can succeed.
We learn through openness to the experience of others.
We must be wise. We can accomplish much; but have limitations
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External Links:
External Link: Does a growth mindset matter for success?
External Link: How I got to therapy
External Link: Make Peace with Your Unlived Life

Internal Link: Flagship article. Ten Beacons of Light. Improving our lives isn't from following items on a simple list. Science, however, has provided some helpful clues to our pursuit of wellness. These ten beacons of light provide direction, lights that illuminate a path to growth.
We don't exist in a world of right and wrong choices. There is not a perfect map for us to follow. Most choices include drawbacks and benefits. We must carefully balance our lives, and continually monitor and make adjustments.
Our plans are disrupted. Circumstances interfere with our intentions. Life will always intrude, demanding adjustments and reconciliations.
External Wellness Links:
External Link:  Failures Are the Souvenirs of Our Efforts
External Link: Grounding techniques when life is spiraling
There's no perfect pattern. Life can be lived many ways. The complexities of living invade, confuse, and misdirect. So we just do the best we can.
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