Your best doesn't have to be "good enough"
Through the practice of liberation, we learn that we never have to be perfect to make the impact we want to make. We never have to be “good enough” according to external standards to be “good enough” as a definitive truth.
All humans know this, but many don’t know that they know it.
Most humans can tell you that you shouldn’t meet your heroes, and these skeptics can point to activists, thinkers, and leaders whose work and legacy they insist should be abandoned, or “canceled,” because those leaders were imperfect.
It is a practice of oppression to exile anyone we judge and condemn; prisons, cancel culture, eating lunch alone because you’re “uncool.” This same oppressive mindset tells the story that Gandhi practiced “anti-blackness” by prioritizing the freedom of Indians of Indian descent, over Indians who were the descendants of Africans, in order to make headway in the fight against British imperialism. This oppressive mindset tells the story that Martin Luther King Jr. was “homophobic/transphobic” because he consented to un-linking the black civil rights movement from the queer civil rights movement in order to get more Black people, including bigoted Christians, on board.
This colonized/oppressive mindset says we should not value the contributions of people who do not live up to a perfect ideal.
But oh my gosh, Gandhi was up against the entire ravenous machine of British Imperialism. Could any of us have done any better? Perhaps… but maybe he did the best anyone could have done at that time and place, with those horrendous circumstances. It is heartbreaking to imagine heroes like Gandhi or MLK Jr. not standing in solitary with all people fighting for freedom and justice, but we become oppressive the moment we abandon our grief for judgment. Worse still, if we adopt this oppressive mindset we will live in fear that one day our contemporaries, or future generations, will wield the same weapon against us. If we continue the practice of oppression, rather than end it, we will be next on the chopping block.
Many of us are doing work that is at the cutting edge of social movements.
The work we are doing pushes the boundaries of what humans can even dream at this time. Yet, be clear, future generations will look back at us from a very different vantage point. Will they tell stories about us like the ones we tell of our predecessors? Will they tell the story that we did it “wrong?”
Future generations could be horrified or bewildered by our present-day actions, but I hope they will see that our work was revolutionary for our time, even though it might not be revolutionary in theirs.
I hope our descendants hold the both/and of us; our profound contributions, and our profound imperfections.
An old-timey saying is, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Meaning, we shouldn’t throw away something precious because it is connected to something we consider worthless. If we throw out every human achievement, because the human who birthed it was imperfect, we would have no human achievement left to benefit from. We could no longer drive cars - invented by a very racist man, wear our favorite clothing brands - made in sweatshops out of materials developed by war profiteering technology, or use the toothpaste that we like - full of microplastics that poison the earth, or live in the city that we live in - founded by racist, sexist, etc. cis-man, most likely. We lose access to many contributions to science (a lot of Nazis) and psychology (a lot of colonized, sexist white men). If we throw out the baby with the bathwater, we will find ourselves with no human thoughts, or achievements that pass the test.
How can we stand on the shoulders of giants and improve on the contributions of the past if we cannot admit that to be human is to be continuously learning and growing? And therefore, the us who got us to this point was a less aware, less competent version of us? How can we do our best today if we are stopped by fear and shame that all our hard work - our very best efforts - may be seen as bathwater by those around us?
We must learn to honor the contradictory authenticity of humanity.
We are amazing, and we aren’t. We are geniuses and we’re ignorant. We are compassionate and we’re cruel. We are at the cutting edge of evolution, and the least evolved our species will ever be again.
Can we give ourselves, each other, and our ancestors a break?
Can we just admit that it’s sad when our best isn’t as good as we’d like it to be? Can we hold each other as our heroes fall off the pedestals we forced them onto while trying to create a savior/ guru/master out of a human being?
Can we just breathe, do our best, and let go of the outcome?
Whether we like it or not, our best is all we can do.
But even an imperfect “best” can change the world for the better.
Photo credits
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Photo by Aldebaran S on Unsplash
Photo by Aldebaran S on Unsplash