I was just sitting at an outdoor restaraunt for lunch where I overheard a conversation between two post-wall women that sounded much like this:

"Well, I really wanted it to work out, and I did my best." "Yeah. And did you do your best?" "I did my best." "Well, if you did your best, then you did your best."

It made me think. These women have never wondered what it means to "do their best." And they have never thought about how to go about figuring out what their best is. And they have never had a conversation about how to improve their 'best' or about how sometimes they wonder if they're deceiving themselves about what their best is. In other words, although these women (and many others) get a lot of mileage out of the phrase "doing my best," they really have no idea what it means. Nor do they care to.

The actual function of the phrase is this: a suggestion that the woman is completely a victim of her environment. If you accept her suggestion, then you feed into her narrative about how she's not responsible for what 'happens' to her or how things turn out for others. If you don't accept her suggestion, she'll think of you as an asshole and will quit going to you to seek reaffirmation in her bullshit.

I'm well-past the "angry at women" phase, and I'm posting this in more of an "angry at these specific women" spirit. Because right after the above conversation, one of the women started talking about her daughter going off to college in Vermont, and acting like her daughter's life is going to fall apart now that her mom isn't there to do her laundry or make grilled cheeses the way she likes them (these were her examples).

"She's gonna have to eat a loooooot of sweet potatooes! HAHAHAHAH!" "HAHAHAH And zucchinis!" "HAHAHAHAH And Tomatoes!" "HAHAHAHA!" "HAHAHAHA!"

They had no idea they were incapable of talking like adults. These were both wealthy women, and they most likely married into their lifestyles. And they clearly thought they were some kind of ringleaders. Despite their stupidity, they're somehow able to have significant influence on how wealthy men make major decisions.