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Dear Cory:
What do people mean when they say "I did my best"? The expression makes my skin crawl. Why? The last time some miscreant used it, you sprang to mind as someone who might understand.
Doubting Thomas
Ah, Mr. Thomas, how Cory enjoys springing to your mind. Seldom has juicier bait been dangled in front of him. The expression is a multi-purpose self-exoneration, and a close relative of "It's not my fault".
Cory has been around humans for a while, his lithe and supple appearance notwithstanding. He believes that if we did our best regularly, our planet would be a garden of abundance and caring. Our best may occasionally be done, but our motivation is so mixed and contradictory, so riddled with emotion, that our best appears as rarely as the Queen wears sweatpants to a ball.
In any intimate relationship, this expression usually signals giving up, self-satisfaction and is a prelude to blame-shifting. It probably makes your skin crawl because your parents used it on you, perhaps in the form of, "I don't know what's the matter with you, I did my best to raise you properly." Parents who use this expression are oddly reluctant to receive a detailed and exhaustive inventory of their mistakes, inattentions and shortcomings as role models. Cory recommends a pert retort such as, "Yeah, you did your best to be an imperious martinet of properness", and while the parent runs to the dictionary to determine if he or she has been insulted, make your escape.
In the workplace (a word that makes Cory shudder), hearing "I did my best" from a delinquent colleague, probably accompanied by a gormless palms-up shrug, can be interpreted as "I did the quickest, sloppiest job I thought I could get away with so I could go home and jerk off".
Professional athletes understand that this expression is mealy-mouthed. Using it will certainly provoke their coach, and fans should they have any, to contemplate the quality of "their best" in unfavorable ways. Athletes know that their best is fantastically hard to realize.
We implore you, Mr. Thomas, to remain on the alert for expressions that are complete nonsense, and be rigorous in your challenge of them.
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