This thing of saying you are doing your best is too often an excuse. You are saying, “I can’t help it.” It is kind of like throwing your hands up in defeat. It’s kind of like saying: “I would do better if I could.” And then you have a list of reasons why you aren’t doing all you are truly capable of.
 
Look, I have told you that you are doing the best you can at any moment, yet I want to tell you there is something different when I say it than when you do. You are really telling a tale about yourself, that you are not coming up to par in your own eyes. At the same time, you are letting go of responsibility that is yours.  
 
Yes, of course, sometimes you ask too much of yourself. This is true. At other times, you do not begin to ask enough of yourself. You take the easy way out. Saying you’re doing the best you can is kind of like a palliative, something you give to yourself to make you feel better, only it doesn’t really work.
 
Of course, there are times you really are doing all that you can do. And there are times when you are running away. This is an emotional kind of subterfuge. It is really better that you do not kid yourself. Somehow, when you run away, you are not making a decision. There is something you want to escape from, and you find an excuse to latch onto.
 
Somewhere within you, you may feel you deserve special dispensation. This may be somewhat like calling yourself not good enough. Maybe you are putting yourself down and making yourself less.  
 
Every human being, at one time or another, has fallen short. Everyone probably has bitten off more than he can chew. At one time or another, every human being has welcomed an opportunity to abscond from responsibility.
 
It’s also true that sometimes, you want to run away from responsibility, and you fall back on: “I can’t do it all.”
 
On one day a week, you are meant to rest, to take a breath, to ease yourself into a more restful rhythm. I never said to take off every day from responsibility that is yours. I don’t recall telling you to loll around seven days a week. I don’t recall telling you, across the board, to retire, as it were.
 
It’s likely I would tell you to keep going.
 
It is only an idea that makes you say you can’t keep up, for, of course, with the right sentiment, of course, you can keep up. You can even exceed far beyond what you have allowed yourself.  Ah, yes, thought precedes action just the same as thought precedes inaction.
 
Sometimes you wear yourself out by not making a decision and moving forward.
 
To let yourself off the hook or not to let yourself off the hook, that is the question, and that is the question that tires you. It would seem that there are times when, whatever decision you make, you don’t buy it. You may feel that you are a scalawag, that you don’t merit taking care of whatever it is, and you don’t merit not taking care of it either.
 
Oh, yes, sometimes you vacillate, and you put yourself in a bind regardless. You make it so you can’t win, and how you tire yourself, how your wavering wears you down.
 
Somehow you want to come to the place where you do not feel guilty. Guilt and responsibility are not the same. Do whatever it is, or don’t, and keep guilt out of the equation. You can’t ride two horses at the same time, beloveds.