Happiness Strategy -- Just Do Your Best Every Day, and be Satisfied

Here is the truth -- all any of us can do, every day, is our best.

It does not do anybody any good to be unhappy when our best does not feel like enough. All we can do is what we have done, and no amount of feeling good or bad is going to change that.

For years, I would make a long to-do list for the day, diligently work through it, and then beat myself up when I did not finish everything. It literally took the better part of 20 years for me to realize that my best is all I can do, and I need to be happy with that, or at least content. Then, it took another few years for me to really settle into the idea.

For years, I had to actively remind myself that my best is all I could do, so I was going to do it and just move on. Sometimes, I still have to remind myself.

Today, I still make my daily list -- doing my best to put the most important things on top -- and I do what I can do. Sometimes I finish the whole thing, and often I do not. Either way, I remind myself that I did my best in the context of that day, and I move on, ready to do my best the next day.