Wisdom From My Mother

I grew up with a piece of wisdom from my mother that has stayed with me my entire life.

She used to say:

“If you do the best you can with the information you have at the time, that’s all you can do.”

At the time, it sounded simple. Almost obvious.

But life has a way of testing truth.

We make decisions without knowing how things will turn out.

We trust professionals.

We do what we believe is right with the facts we’re given.

And sometimes, later on, we learn things we wish we had known sooner.

That’s when guilt tries to move in.

That’s when we replay moments and ask ourselves,

“What if I had done something differently?”

But here’s what I’ve learned through caregiving, loss, and ordinary human moments:

You cannot punish yourself for not knowing what you could not have known.

Doing the best you can with the information you have is not a failure.

It is being human.

If you made a choice with care, with love, and with the intention to do right,

you are allowed to forgive yourself.

You are allowed to rest.

You are allowed to move forward without carrying regret that doesn’t belong to you.

Sometimes the kindest thing we can do for ourselves

is to stop judging yesterday with today’s knowledge —

and let grace do the rest.