The Best or The Most

I went on a run today.

I'm not a runner. I like Yoga and Pilates. And visiting with people. That's my talent: I like to visit.

But I went running.

Along this particular trail, there is some encouraging graffiti. It is this graffiti that makes me want to run/walk this path over and over.

Thank you, anonymous artists for the random shouts of affirmation. I hope you did not get in trouble by the City.

While I was running and walking and processing, I started thinking about the question, "Do I want to give my kids the Best?"

By this I mean the best schools, the best opportunities, the newest clothes, the most strategic positioning for the best of friends, the best allowance, the best guidance, the best bedrooms, the best game for the best and latest video game thingie, the best cell phone, the best advice, etc.

This question is usually a no-brainer: YES I want to give them the Best to my abilities.

But today I kept coming up Silent at my response to my own question. Disturbing, indeed.

Maybe I don't want to give them the Best. Maybe I want to give them the Most.

Let me define my terms.

I don't want them to go to the Best Schools.

I want them to go to the schools that offer the most diversity, the most creativity, the most challenge (socially and academically). I want them to have friends that have the Best Stuff and the Worst Stuff. I want them to feel familiar in settings that have the Best to the Worst.

I want them on sports teams that lose and win. Like, lose all season. Then the next year, win some.

I want to give them presents that they love and for them to label those presents the Best Stuff. Then I want them to grow tired or embarrassed of that Best Stuff and change its name to the Worst Stuff.

I want some of their friends to be Horrible. Then some of them to be the Best.

I want the Most Feeling, the Most Talking, the Most Hating and Loving as possible out of their growing up.

I can't give them the Best. I'm not sure I can give them the Most out of life.

I can give them the Best and Most out of me as a parent, and then hope from there.

Still trying to answer my own question...I don't want to give them the Best today.

I want them to be the Best that they are with the Most we can arrange.

And no matter what, let's all: