January 2003
In The Final Analysis: Do Your Best Anyway!
Featured Writer: James H. Shackelford, Ph.D., Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Many years ago, I worked with a psychiatrist who supervised my clinical work. He used to say that a major goal of therapy was to help clients move from a place of doing things to prove their worth and value to doing things as expressions of who they were at their core.

This idea conflicted with much of what I had been taught as a child growing up in the South. I learned that appearances mattered, that success and recognition defined who you were and where your place was in the community. Families had reputations to uphold. I took pride in "where I came from." I took pride in my family's successes and accomplishments. My parents often said, "I'm proud of you, son," and I loved hearing that.

The idea that I would do something without paying attention to how I would be acknowledged or praised was foreign to me. One of the reasons it has stuck with me over these years is that it has proved freeing for both me and many of my clients.

When failures occurred and I disappointed others, my shame became handicapping. I went through a divorce and felt I was a failure. When my values conflicted with those of my family, I felt pressure to remain silent. I was a Southerner who hated segregation and prejudice. I walked in protest marches but never let my family know. When my choices of friends and partners were not approved by my family, I moved out of the South. I experienced conflict and judgment over my choices that were both uncomfortable and sometimes damaging to my relationships. When I wanted to follow a career in counseling, my choice baffled my family. Why would anyone want to talk about their failures, heartbreaks or disappointments? I often felt the need to defend the value of my calling or to keep a low profile so as not to offend them.

The idea that I could let go of proving myself to others, that I could find validity for my values and actions internally rather than externally, continued to be a foreign idea. As it sank in, I began to see the power of this idea. If I paid less attention to what others wanted, I was free to express myself without constantly looking over my shoulder.

My clients liked the idea as well. Being authentic to their internal values and callings was often hard when their families, partners and communities were freely judging their choices. But it made sense to them and brought them greater freedom and satisfaction. We were discovering together that we suffered less when we follow our internal voices, our internal escorts.

We have a Graham Herbert poster entitled "Sacred Escort" in the Center. Herbert is a Canadian artist who specializes in scenes from the Pacific Northwest. Sacred Escort is a picture of a single canoe peacefully beached on a quiet lake. The saying beneath it reads, "Travel your own path, in your own way, at your own pace."

When I wilderness canoed, I realized the wisdom of this. Pacing yourself, finding how you best paddled to keep moving forward, and enjoying the moment and beauty that surrounded you were tremendously satisfying. The only audience that would comment on your performance might be your bowman, but if he or she were fully into the experience they didn't care what you were doing. They were doing the best they could and enjoying everything around them. I've come to believe that being less self conscious, less focused on how others evaluated my efforts, and doing my best makes life much more pleasurable.

A final set of thoughts. At a gathering of the medical staff recently, the chaplain quoted the passage below from Mother Theresa in his remarks. I was struck by how her thoughts fit with my reflections. She calls on us to look in the final analysis to God's judgment of our efforts and to be less concerned with what judgements others make of us. She challenges us to succeed, to build, to do what we be lieve is good and to do our very best without paying attention to whether others may judge our efforts as adequate or inadequate.

When we live this way, when we do our personal best, that is all we should expect from ourselves. In the final analysis, it is all between us and our Maker and never between us and the world. We need to be less concerned whether others will recognize and applaud our accomplishment and more concerned that we are following our authentic values and callings.

If we could live with the conviction that our personal best was good enough, we would suffer a whole lot less each day. For in the end, in the final analysis, our best is all we can do, anyway.

Jim Shackelford, Ph.D.
Jim has been on the staff of the Center since 1976. He is a Licensed Clinical Psychologists and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. An ordained Presbyterian pastor, Jim currently serves as the Clinical Director of the Center.

The Final Analysis
Attributed to Mother Theresa

• People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered; forgive them anyway.
• If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway.
• What you spend years building, someone may destroy overnight; build anyway.
• The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway.
• Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you've got anyway.
• You see, in the final analysis, it is all between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway.

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