The FOURTH of THE FOUR AGREEMENTS

 

ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST

There is one more agreement, but it's the one that allows the other three to become deeply ingrained habits.  The fourth agreement is about the action of the first three: ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST.

Under any circumstances, always do your best, no more and no less.  But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next.  Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality, and other times it will not be as good.  When you wake up refreshed and energized in the morning, your best will be better than when you are tired at night.  Your best will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick, or sober as opposed to drunk.  Your best will depend on whether you are feeling wonderful and happy or upset, angry or jealous.

In your everyday moods your best can change from one moment to another, from one hour to the next, from one day to another.  Your best will also change over time.  As you build the habit of the four new agreements, your best will become better than it used to be.

Regardless of the quality, keep doing your best - no more and no less than your best.

You are not here to sacrifice your joy or your life.  You are here to live, to be happy, and to love ... Doing your best, you are going to live your life intensely.  You are going to be productive, you are going to be good to yourself, because you will be giving yourself to your family, to your community, to everything.  But it is the action that is going to make you feel intensely happy.  When you always do your best, you take action.  Doing your best is taking the action because you love it, not because you're expecting a reward ...

If we like what we do, if we always do our best, then we are really enjoying life.  We are having fun, we don't get bored, we don't have frustrations ... DOING YOUR BEST REALLY DOESN'T FEEL LIKE WORK BECAUSE YOU ENJOY WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING. 

Action is about living fully.  Inaction is the way that we deny life.  Inaction is sitting in frontof the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are.  Expressing what you are is taking action.  YOU CAN HAVE MANY GREAT IDEAS IN YOUR HEAD, BUT WHAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE IS ACTION.  WITHOUT ACTION UPON AN IDEA, THERE WILL BE NO MANIFESTATION, NO RESULTS AND NO REWARD.

God is life.  God is life in action.  The best way to say, I love you God", is to live your life doing your best.  The best way to say, "Thank You God," is by letting go of the past and living in the present moment, right here and right now.  Whatever life takes away from you, let it go.  When you surrender and let go of the past, you allow yourself to be fully alive in the moment.  Letting go of the past means you can enjoy the dream that is happening right now.

There is no time to miss anyone or anything because you are alive.  Not enjoying what is happening right now is living in the past and being only half alive.  This leads to self-pity, suffering and tears. 

You were born with the right to be happy.  You were born with the right to love, to enjoy and to share your love.  You are alive, so take your life and enjoy it.  Don't resist life passing through you, because that is God passing through you.  Just your existence proves the existence of God.  Your existence prove the existence of life and energy.

We don't need to know or prove anything.  Just to be, to take a risk and enjoy life, is all that matters.  Say no when you want to say no, and yes when you want to say yes.  You have the right to be you.  You can only be you when you do your best.

By doing your best, the habits of misusing your word, taking things personally, and making assumptions will become weaker and less frequent with time.  You don't need to judge yourself, feel guilty, or punish yourself if you cannot keep these agreements ... If you do your best in the search for personal freedom, in the search for self-love, you will discover that it's just a matter of time before you find what you are looking for. 

Do not be concerned about the future; keep your attention on today, and stay in the present moment.  Just live one day at a time.  ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST to keep these agreements, and soon, it will be easy foryou.  Today is the beginning of a new dream. 

Powerful!  I have been excited about this point of view from the first time I read it.  I understand more about myself every time I return to this book.  I am sharing it with you but it is your choice what to do with it.  Just trying my best to keep the Four Agreements creates opportunities to praise myself every time I catch myself doing something right!  Over my lifetime, I have accepted other agreements about me, my life, my family, and the world and not all of them were kind to me, my life, my family and the world. 

Some of those ideas held me back and opened me up to abusing myself.  Those false beliefs opened me up to receive other people's beliefs that matched my own poison and exchanging that kind of poison is just two people abusing each other.  I was a victim.  Because I was saying negative things to myself, I allowed other people to say the same things to me because deep down, I already thought those things were true.  They weren't true.  I did dumb things but I am NOT a dumb person.  I made mistakes but I am NOT a mistake.  I needed to forgive myself for getting me into some of those messes and then relegate those messes to the past where they belong. 

Bad things could have happened a year ago or ten years ago but they are in the past.  The only way they can hurt me now is if I bring them back.  Some things hurt like heck years ago but they don't have to come back and hurt me 30 seconds ago!  There is no good that will come out of keeping that pain alive. 

If I can forgive me, I can apply the same forgiveness to the people who might have hurt me.  Using the Four Agreements, I can accept that what they did at the time was more about them than it was about me.  I can't make any assumption about what they did or why they did it because I do not know, and even if I asked that person, they may not know either.  Anger, Jealousy, Rage all come from fear ... and the ones who hurt us may not know or be ready to know why they hurt us because they are still so busy hurting themselves.  Doing our best means having compassion for ourselves, and the ones around us.  

If I keep my speech impeccable, if I don't take anything personally, if I don't make assumptions, and if I do my best every day for all the days of my life, that is all that I can do.  If others choose to do the same thing, that is their choice.  If others choose not to do the same thing, that is also their choice. 

I can only do what I can do to make my life a better place for me.  Like Don Miguel Ruiz says, "Today is the beginning of a new dream."
 
 

4.  ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST.  
We can practice the FOUR AGREEMENTS every day.  Some days will be good.  Some days will be not so good.  Our circumstances may change.  Our energy level and insights might fluctuate but we can still ALWAYS DO OUR BEST.