THE FOURTH AGREEMENT: ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST
THERE IS JUST 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 circumstance, 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. If you try too hard to do more than your best, you will spend more
energy than is needed and in the end your best will not be enough. When you
overdo, you deplete your body and go against yourself, and it will take you
longer to accomplish your goal. But if you do less than your best, you subject
yourself to frustrations, self-judgment, guilt, and regrets.
Just do your best — in any circumstance in your life. It doesn’t matter if you
are sick or tired, if you always do your best there is no way you can judge
yourself. And if you don’t judge yourself there is no way you are going to suffer
from guilt, blame, and self-punishment. By always doing your best, you will
break a big spell that you have been under.
There was a man who wanted to transcend his suffering so he went to a
Buddhist temple to find a Master to help him. He went to the Master and asked,
“Master, if I meditate four hours a day, how long will it take me to transcend?”
The Master looked at him and said, “If you meditate four hours a day,
perhaps you will transcend in ten years.”
Thinking he could do better, the man then said, “Oh, Master, what if I
meditated eight hours a day, how long will it take me to transcend?”
The Master looked at him and said, “If you meditate eight hours a day,
perhaps you will transcend in twenty years.”
“But why will it take me longer if I meditate more?” the man asked.
The Master replied, “You are not here to sacrifice your joy or your life. You
are here to live, to be happy, and to love. If you can do your best in two hours
of meditation, but you spend eight hours instead, you will only grow tired, miss
the point, and you won’t enjoy your life. Do your best, and perhaps you will
learn that no matter how long you meditate, you can live, love, and be happy.”
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. Most people do exactly the opposite: They
only take action when they expect a reward, and they don’t enjoy the action.
And that’s the reason why they don’t do their best.
For example, most people go to work every day just thinking of payday, and
the money they will get from the work they are doing. They can hardly wait for
Friday or Saturday, whatever day they receive their money and can take time
off. They are working for the reward, and as a result they resist work. They try
to avoid the action and it becomes more difficult, and they don’t do their best.
They work so hard all week long, suffering the work, suffering the action, not
because they like to, but because they feel they have to. They have to work
because they have to pay the rent, because they have to support their family.
They have all that frustration, and when they do receive their money they are
unhappy. They have two days to rest, to do what they want to do, and what do
they do? They try to escape. They get drunk because they don’t like themselves.
They don’t like their life. There are many ways that we hurt ourselves when we
don’t like who we are.
On the other hand, if you take action just for the sake of doing it, without
expecting a reward, you will find that you enjoy every action you do. Rewards
will come, but you are not attached to the reward. You can even get more than
you would have imagined for yourself without 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.
When you do your best, you don’t give the Judge the opportunity to find you
guilty or to blame you. If you have done your best and the Judge tries to judge
you according to your Book of Laws, you’ve got the answer: “I did my best.”
There are no regrets. That is why we always do our best. It is not an easy
agreement to keep, but this agreement is really going to set you free.
When you do your best you learn to accept yourself. But you have to be
aware and learn from your mistakes. Learning from your mistakes means you
practice, look honestly at the results, and keep practicing. This increases your
awareness.
Doing your best really doesn’t feel like work because you enjoy whatever
you are doing. You know you’re doing your best when you are enjoying the
action or doing it in a way that will not have negative repercussions for you.
You do your best because you want to do it, not because you have to do it, not
because you are trying to please the Judge, and not because you are trying to
please other people.
If you take action because you have to, then there is no way you are going to
do your best. Then it is better not to do it. No, you do your best because doing
your best all the time makes you so happy. When you are doing your best just
for the pleasure of doing it, you are taking action because you enjoy the action.
Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way that we deny life. Inaction is
sitting in front of 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 the action. Without action upon an idea, there will be no
manifestation, no results, and no reward.
A good example of this comes from the story about Forrest Gump. He didn’t
have great ideas, but he took action. He was happy because he always did his
best at whatever he did. He was richly rewarded without expecting any reward
at all. Taking action is being alive. It’s taking the risk to go out and express
your dream. This is different than imposing your dream on someone else,
because everyone has the right to express his or her dream.
Doing your best is a great habit to have. I do my best in everything I do and
feel. Doing my best has become a ritual in my life because I made the choice to
make it a ritual. It’s a belief like any other belief that I choose. I make
everything a ritual, and I always do my best. Taking a shower is a ritual for me,
and with that action I tell my body how much I love it. I feel and enjoy the
water on my body. I do my best to fulfill the needs of my body. I do my best to
give to my body and to receive what my body gives to me.
In India they perform a ritual called puja. In this ritual, they take idols that
represent God in many different forms and bathe them, feed them, and give their
love to them. They even chant mantras to these idols. The idol itself is not
important. What is important is the way they perform the ritual, the way they
say, “I love you, God.”
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 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.
If you live in a past dream, you don’t enjoy what is happening right now
because you will always wish it to be different than it is. 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 proves the
existence of life and energy.
We don’t need to know or prove anything. Just to be, to take a risk and enjoy
your 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. When you don’t do your best you are denying yourself the right to be
you. That’s a seed that you should really nurture in your mind. You don’t need
knowledge or great philosophical concepts. You don’t need the acceptance of
others. You express your own divinity by being alive and by loving yourself
and others. It is an expression of God to say, “Hey, I love you.”
The first three agreements will only work if you do your best. Don’t expect
that you will always be able to be impeccable with your word. Your routine
habits are too strong....
