BEST FOOT FORWARD

Growing up we have all probably been encouraged when going out into the world to “put our best foot forward.” Sounded like a good idea. If we always did the best we could, always showed the best side of ourselves, we would make it in this world, whatever “make it” meant to us back then or to those encouraging us to look good to the world and all whom we would encounter in our journey through life.

Over the years we have tried to live out those words that sounded very wise – and they still are. The only problem is that in always trying to put our best foot forward we often fell flat on or face. We tried to do or best, or at least tried to do what we thought was expected of us, and we came up short, sometimes very short. And sometimes trying to do our best turned into a disaster.

We may have even been tempted to give up trying because we could never please everyone, because it seemed that there was always someone who found fault with our efforts even when we did the very best we could. The truth is that we have never stopped trying to do our best because we are personally never satisfied with anything less than the best we can do even if someone else could do it better – and probably did.

We stumble and fall when trying to put our best foot forward whenever we try to be more than we are and do more than we possibly can. We all have limitations. No one is all-powerful. No one has all the skills for every conceivable situation. No one. And so when we find ourselves in places where we would rather not be because the situation demands more of us than we can possibly do, if we try to pretend we can handle it, we wind up falling flat on our faces.

Putting our best foot forward demands that we are honest with ourselves about both our gifts and our limitations. It demands that we are honest and humble enough to admit that what is being asked of us is beyond us, beyond our ability to make an even adequate response. Putting our best foot forward in such instances means walking away rather than making the situation worse than it may already be.

My guess is that we have all been there. We have offered to lend a hand when the hand we offered was not capable of doing anything but making a mess of what was going on at the time. We offered the hand because we thought it was the right thing to do because, well, we’re supposed to help, are we not? No, we are not. Not when the help we offer won’t really help at all.

What happened, of course, is that we have learned the hard way. That advice early on in our lives took time to both root and to understand. We still, at times, walk into a situation when we should walk away because the best foot forward is sometimes, in reality, a backward step away.