Our Best Selves

Bad behavior is easy, and judging by what we see on TV, the way we drive or our political battles it seems to be the norm today. Even some of our most highly regarded institutions - law enforcement, schools, professional sports leagues, churches - are plagued by member conduct that has left them scandalized, in public relations nightmares and garnered our distrust, anger and disgust. We hope, no we expect everyone to be their best selves. 

But why don’t we generally find ourselves being our best selves?

When we ask how can everyone from police to teachers to pastors – those from whom we expect better – behave so poorly, we’re also asking why they didn’t let their best selves prevail. It’s a great question, one that has many correct answers and ridiculous layers of complexity. However, two reasons seem to stand out to me: environmental influences and lack of practice.

Being your best self requires a supportive environment and practice to develop it into a habit and therefore, the default behavior.

There is a proverb that goes something like this: bad company corrupts good morals. For brevity’s sake, I’m going to state the obvious issue this proverb identifies: it’s hard not to be like those you hang around with and not do what they are constantly doing.  Bad behavior becomes normal behavior if that is what the group expects and practices. This works in reverse too. Being our best selves can be our normal selves if that is what is practiced by those we associate with. 

So, we can safely say that part of the problem and opportunity is environmental. There are factors, forces and influences that make it easier for us to choose to be our best or worst selves. We can and should ask ourselves, what and who are the influences that we allow into our personal environments? Do they encourage us to be our best selves or lead us to act in ways that are regrettable?  How can we change our environment so that its influence is to encourage our best selves? 

We can also suggest that being our best self is a matter of practice, that is to say, it can become our default behavior if it is a developed habit. Our behaviors and choices – our practices – are generally what we learn and what have become set patterns through enforcement and reinforcement. Being our best self likewise is a habit that can be cultivated and developed. Choosing to be my best self and finding ways to enforce and reinforce being my best self will result in it becoming my default behavior. A good question to ask ourselves is what aspect of my best self can I begin to practice right now? How will I practice it and other aspects of my best self? How do I reinforce and support the practice and behavior? 

Being our best selves is a choice.

The final thought is that being our best selves is a choice that we can make - it is a decision of the will. That isn’t to say that it will be an easy one, but many of life’s best results don’t come from ease or comfort. My sense is that we will individually and as a community be better because we are striving and succeeding in living up to a higher ideal – being our best selves.