Some of us may at times feel as though it’s a struggle just keeping our heads above water, just to get through the day. You might look at your situation and feel overwhelmed — “Am I going to make it until the end of the month, or even the end of the day?” Or perhaps, it was a struggle this morning just to get out of bed. But if you did, despite such a struggle, you deserve credit. Sometimes, just showing up and being present is the best we can do. Too many of us — and this applies to all roles in our lives, and at all ages (this includes your teachers and parents too!) — have felt less worthy of a task at hand because we are not meeting our own standard of perfection for that day. We need to get over ourselves, move past that, and simply be present. A dramatic case in point: the 2008 movie We are Marshall tells the story of Marshall University’s struggle to rebuild its football program after a plane crash tragically takes the lives of virtually everyone on the team. University leaders considered folding the program all together — to give up if you will — rather than endure more pain of what would be a formidable task. But the school—and indeed the community—decided to move forward. Staying in the game was what was needed most of all. It wasn’t about winning. It was about playing. While the movie ends with the new football team achieving a dramatic game win, it goes on to tell you that for the next fifteen years, Marshall did indeed struggle, losing far more games than they would win.

It wasn’t about winning. It was about playing.

But that didn’t matter. What mattered is that they played. They showed up. And according to Woody Allen, isn’t that most of what makes success? Just showing up? It calls to mind the words of C. S. Lewis in one of his books: “I am to give my readers not the best absolutely but the best I have.” Indeed, this is all we can ever do. But we should take comfort in knowing that too often we give ourselves less credit than we are due, and that the best we have is often better than we think.