The “Best” Me?

Lately, or at least since the school year started, I’ve been going to bed by reviewing the day I’ve had. Time and time again, I've been find myself coming back to the same question of if I'm being the best me, or in other words, if I'm being the best version of myself. From there comes the avalanche of a dozen other questions.  What did I offer myself today? Where am I really going? Did I do everything I could with my best foot forward? Wait-Vahini, did you use both feet? Because only one is kind of mediocre, girlfriend. 

To some extent, I sound like one of those super cheesy quotes you find from daily calendars - which I secretly LOVE - but these dizzying questions are kind of the worst thing to happen, at least before one is supposed to extract herself from the outside world for about 6-8 hours anyway. It’s weird, because I never really found these words clinging to my thoughts to this capacity, at least not since I was applying to university in grade twelve. Lately they seem to be a non-stop and rather persistent medley that ultimately sounds like I'm just being too hard on myself. The thing is, it’s just so easy to get swept up in an atmosphere where we pride ourselves on all being Type-A, can-do-it-all personas who secretly own time-turners à la Hermione Granger. And while there’s nothing wrong in being the best you there is, it’s just as easy to get lost in that kind of world.

I guess this entire rant is based on the fact that I believed I was past this kind of thinking, where I had mastered the critical voices in my head completely, I mean I'm practically always asking Sarah for this kind of advice, so I really thought I knew the signs from the Queen of Great Advice herself! It is an ongoing challenge, especially with conversations about grad school applications beginning. I guess the beauty - in what I feel like is one long conversation with myself - is realizing that I still have a few hurdles to get over in matters of perfection. It comes down to this: sometimes we look for where we last left the best versions of ourselves, and sometimes we look in the wrong places. I don’t find anything wrong with looking, I just feel like it’s a matter of where. But maybe, just maybe, having to look at all to begin with, is the root of the problem. I guess the right answer here is in where we decide to draw the line between being happy with ourselves, knowing we can do better and accepting who we are as a whole. -Vahini