Historical Post: Sometimes your best isn't enough, but that's okay! - July 13, 2015
Sometimes your best isn’t enough, but that’s okay!
This morning I’m exhausted. I spent the last 36 hours caring for a puppy from my litter that just wasn’t meant to have a long life here on this Earth. As she struggled, I bottle fed her to keep her strong. She fought constipation, and I battled that with warm wet rags, tummy massage and round the clock care. At t
As the hours passed and her condition worsened, I thought about the vets mention that puppies so small, if stricken ill, are often times doomed, because their size isn’t conducive to correct dosing of any medication. Basically almost any medication can be almost certainly deadly if mis-dosed, and cutting down a dosage to a puppy so small was a risk. Even so, watching her struggle, I pulled out all stops, was up half the night, broke down an anti-inflammatory and a antibiotic and gave her minute doses every few hours in hopes that something would work.
Sadly, no miracle came, and as I dozed finally between 4:30 and 5:30 this morning, she passed out of this world. As a Buddhist, we believe that a short life, even in a puppy, is short based on lack of enlightenment and the need to start again. So while I wonder what a soul could have learned in less than a week, I realized this morning how much love I wrapped her in while she was ill. I can only hope that whatever her next vessel is, she took that gift of love and compassion on her next journey.
With that said, prior to the thoughts of her future elsewhere, I struggled this morning feeling defeated. I think often times as human beings we can’t seem to get past that negative thought process that comes with supposed failures. I did sit this morning feeling as if I had failed. Feeling like I could have done more. Then it dawned on me that sometimes what I can do is all that there is, and if it isn’t enough it’s okay, it wasn’t meant to be.
We sit back so often and think about our mistakes and short comings as being a negative thing. Thinking of these things with a positive spin is helpful in self preservation. For each thing we can’t accomplish there comes a lesson. Sometimes it is a skill set that is improved, compassion discovered, the yearning to learn more, or the self discovery on needing to be a better person. That old saying, “everything happens for a reason” tends to be something I live by. I have to take the entirety of a situation and seek the real meaning in it. It can be hard, initially to clear the emotion away to see the meaning in something, especially when it is horrible or hurts terribly, but there truly is a lesson or meaning to even the hardest times and experiences.
Here is a good “for instance”. As a child, I was assaulted by someone I was close to on a sexual level. I shut down and didn’t deal with it for years, and when I did, it really set me back emotionally for a while. It’s a horrible thing and can really screw up a person’s ability to believe in oneself or love oneself. There was a lot of self hatred in my life when I was growing up that I didn’t understand. It was all rooted to what I had been through that was suppressed in my mind. While it was a horrible experience that no human being should ever have to go through, it also expanded on my ability to help other’s through it. I was there for several kids who didn’t know what they were struggling with, or how to talk to others because they felt so alone. From the bad, can come good.
I challenge each and every one of you to look for the good in the bad things that happen in your life. They may not be something you see in the moment. Sometimes you won’t see the good for some time. The saying “hind site is 20/20” comes from this very thing. In the moment we often don’t see what we are meant to see from a troubling situation, but in the aftermath of fires, new life blooms and sprouts. There is always good. It’s up to you to find it.