It's understood that you did the best with what you had or what you knew. That's the whole point of doing your best. If you had it all or knew it all, you wouldn't need to do your best. You'd just do it.
If you did your best, own it. You gave it all you had. Period. End of story.
But sometimes we add that qualifier not as an inartful turn of phrase but as a means of justifying ourselves. It's the out we give ourselves when we choose to turn away from inkling, intuition or the hardwork of digging deeper and learning more. It's far easier to claim no outright knowledge than it is to go through the looking glass. We are afraid to cross the point of no return, knowing that we will be charged with what we've seen and heard.
The luxury of ignorance is a luxury we can't afford.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. --Edmund Burke
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Here's something you can't claim ignorance of today. Love Without Boundaries is an organization whose vision is "to provide the most loving and compassionate help possible to orphaned and impoverished children in China, and to show the world that every child, regardless of his or her needs, deserves to experience love and be treated with dignity and care." LWB is in the running for a professionally produced commercial to be aired during the Super Bowl. Go here to vote for LWB. You can vote daily.
It's a pretty lousy excuse. But I think there's often a connection w/ regret....sometimes what comes after "what I knew at the time" can be a game changer. I know I've made calls that I would've handled differently if I'd gotten info that didn't turn up until later.
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