Making Do vs Making The Best

While pursuing my News Apps, early and long before the sun came up, I ran across a story about how well the Seattle Mariners are doing in this supposedly “rebuilding” season. There are a number of new players, coaches and a new year to try and do the best with what they have, all the while hoping that there could be a pennant run next year, or maybe even the year after.

But the Mariners are breaking records! Wins. Losses. Home Runs. Number of runs. There are even comparisons of their records to games from the 1930’s that includes names like Babe Ruth! They have become the first team EVER to hit home runs in their first 15 games of the season! No other team has EVER done this!

This particular article was about a player (Daniel Vogelbach ), whom I’ve never seen until I clicked on the link to see his stats, and it describes him in ways that say, “This is a baseball player???” You know. You have an image of what a typical player looks like and this guy broke the mold.

“He stands 6-foot, with the round face of a South Park character, the torso of a quarter-barrel keg and the goofy countenance of Chris Farley. ” [Source]

With that description, if you stay with the story, you find out that Vogelbach understands what others think about him, but he has some hidden talents!

“He knows this because he’s self-aware enough to understand how baseball people discount him because of his body and foot speed and all the gifts he wasn’t given. So he must be smarter. He must work harder. He must approach baseball with the reverence and respect something so difficult warrants.” (Same source)

How does he work smarter? Harder? How is he in the reverence and respect category?

He’s an egghead with the capability of storing vast amounts of encyclopedic information and blessed with the ability to analyze and utilize. He knows how each pitcher throws every ball and what he has to do to hit it!

My brain has dug into this thought for the past few hours.

You can either “make do” with your limitations,
or you can “make the best”
and be better in other ways that many will never understand.

Here’s my thought today. We often compare ourselves with others who are gifted differently, or at a different season of life, or have even gone through their own personal challenges to become who they are long before we knew them.

The story was told of a child who told a famous concert hall musician at the end of a performance, “I want to be as good as you!” No, you don’t. If you did you wouldn’t be here listening to me. You would be home practicing 8 hours per day to get to this position!

If you put everyone into this revelatory equation you realize there is no comparison between you and them. You are uniquely you. Right now! Again.

You are uniquely you!

You have natural talents you can exploit, and you have skills you can develop. Who you are will continue to evolve, develop and grow and someday you will the one to whom others are comparing to themselves! The entities you compare one to another are in a constant state of flux. Change happens all the time! Nothing stays the same. Vogelbach states this.

“It’s not gonna last. I understand that,” Vogelbach says. “I try not to ride that roller coaster. If you can stay even-keeled the whole time, through the ups and downs, at the end of the year you’ll be where you want to be.” (Same source)

Summation? Be the best you possible! But have an attitude of always improving. Do not be content to only “making do”, rather, “make the best.”

When I was younger an immediate superior wanted me to be more like him. I knew I could not do that. He had traits that annoyed everyone, and I had talents he did not recognize. I simply said, “I want to be the best me that me knows how.“

Do you remember those writing exercises of years gone by where you would “Compare and Contrast“? You would write to show similarities and differences. It helped your word usage because you had to analyze and utilize a different component of your brain. You had to develop the ability to know where each was, what was similar and what was different. You became strong in your analytical skills! It helped you make better decisions when you did this on yourself compared to someone else!

Do an exercise with me. Name someone you wish you could be more like. Now. Compare and Contrast. You recognize your shortcomings. You celebrate your talents. You build yourself into the image of what you CAN DO with what you are blessed with. But in everything you do, know this, you will never be identical to that one you are comparing and contrasting yourself to.

Here’s what you should learn about yourself. You can either “make do” with an attitude of barely getting by, or you can “make the best” of who you are and beef up the areas that you are really talented in.

Here’s hoping you are Making the Best!