Not to mention the tens of thousands of dollars we had shelled out for it, and had many times during preceding years of tears and frustration. For this pregnancy, my late husband and I had flown to California so I could undergo surgery with a specialist. But it is nevertheless my best in that moment. In scrutinizing my own behavior more closely, I’ve decided that while I do not always do my best, there are times when my honest-to-goodness best must appear pretty darn bad to others. It keeps me out of judgment and lets me focus on what is and not what could or should be.” Generosity is rewarded by peace of mind and, for no better reason, is worth a tinge of rose-colored lenses. When I assume people are doing their best, my life is better. Improvement, he feels, is contingent on realizing it when you could have done better.īrene’s husband may have had the best answer: “.

Like me, he said no but qualified it with the idea that if the answer is yes, it means there is not room within people for improvement, which is depressing. John, my (choose one: boyfriend, partner, complicating life factor) had a more thoughtful answer. In the middle of the book, however, Brene confronts and 'rumbles' (to use her word) with the question Are people, in general, doing their best? My response, when I first thought about it, was a quick no: I am not always doing my best, therefore other people are not always doing their best. But it is better to dare greatly and fail than not to dare at all. It’s messy, hard and humiliating to do anything worth doing. The gist of it is this: it’s easy to criticize. Brene bases the book on a Teddy Roosevelt quote I taped to my computer a decade ago, not realizing how appropriate it would seem years into starting a business that reminds me at times of a sick dog tied to a tree.

Rising Strong is about recovering from failure. She writes in a way that somehow makes you feel as though you are her friend, that she'd actually wave at you from across a crowded room. I've been reading Brene Brown's Rising Strong.

Brene brown teddy roosevelt