Be the best we can

Oddly, my phone spoke these words.

I know you didn’t want to run today. You could so easily have not bothered. Doing your best does make a difference. Aren’t you glad you did your best, and went for that run today?

That message spooked me. How did it know I really didn’t want to run today, of all days? It’s weird, I know the running app is an impersonal machine speaking recorded words, but it still helps. We all like affirmation and encouragement.

Be the best I can is a signature behaviour of the Royal Australian Navy. At a time when our world is grappling with ways to survive, ease, control, manage and live through the worst medical crisis in a hundred years – it is essential to remember we can make a difference by being the best we can be.

Early this year, the leadership of every country in the world began to hear about a virus called Covid 19. Over the last few months the spread of the virus has varied massively from country to country. The reasons and factors are many. Leaders balanced the medical crisis with the devastating economic cost of lockdown. Without any previous experience, without being sure if any measure would work, with polarised economic and medical advice, leaders made the hardest calls. With varying speeds and degrees of certainty borders were shut, society was locked down and economic stimulus packages were handed out. Premiers, Presidents, Prime Ministers, Governors and Mayors have rarely had their decisions more thoroughly scrutanised. Sadly, the results of those diverse decisions are being exposed often with tragic consequences. The best leaders stood up and their people are grateful.

Now that restrictions are being lifted a new question arises. Will we do our best, be our best and make the best decisions. Our temptation is to focus on our leaders while avoiding the challenge of our own personal responsibility. Our economy needs to come back to life. The decisions we make as individuals and the behaviour we exhibit in groups is now up for judgement.

The virus remains extant. We need to be at our best to recover our world and our lives. We need to keep our distance, wash our hands, avoid crowds, eat nutritious food, exercise, isolate if we are sick and when symptoms appear get tested.

Being ­the best we can, has never mattered more.

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Gal 6:7