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In my formative years I don’t recall a “you could do better” speech, but “be the best that you can be” was implied time and again. Living up to potential had no posted standards, no rigid guidelines, and no contractual obligations. It was just an expectation at home, at school, and in the neighborhood.

My parents wanted the best for all of us. My mother believed our personal growth would be stunted if we didn’t start the day with a good breakfast. How could we learn if we didn’t eat our oatmeal and drink our orange juice? It had to be the special, old-fashioned oatmeal that predated microwaveable porridge, and the juice had to be freshly squeezed from the cardboard cylinder from the freezer.

For the most part, we were pretty good kids because the people we knew were pretty good people. Being the best you can be is easier if you “don’t know no better,” and we were taught to be good every day. Sure, we had a grammatical hiccup or two, but our basic morals and role models were solid.

Eventually some of us tried to up the ante. Our competitive nature taught us superlatives long before our English teachers did. If I’m this good today, can I be a little better tomorrow? If one bowl of oatmeal is good for me, what about two? What if someday, I can be best orange-juice squeezer ever?

Can you remember that energy - that desire to be a little bigger and a lot faster? Maybe you wanted to read one more book or to pick up one more musical instrument? Whatever the endeavor, you had the get-better fever! Measuring and then achieving new personal bests became an obsession.

If you are going to get an infection, the curse of near perfection isn’t all bad, but it creates some growth pains. Hard work. Dedication. Practice. Body aches and mental fatigue visited as the innocent desire to be a little better tomorrow than you were today grew.

At some point in most of our lives that naive craving to go from good to better to best meets its adversaries. The point of diminishing returns emerges when muscle mass and body fat and priorities change. Then we meander back to our roots, back to trying to be the best we can be because that is what the people we knew tried to do at every stage.

Despite my age, I still endure an occasional outbreak of the be-the-best compulsion. Surprisingly that condition reemerged yesterday when my phone started ringing before the alarm. The screen labeled the call as SPAM, and so it began.

Initially I was irritated. I’m not particularly fond of phone calls and even less of the unsolicited interruptions that seem to be increasing. One is a bad moment. Three irritate the heck out of me, and up to now five might have defined a worst day.

By noon I had received twenty-five spam calls and ten texts. They were oatmeal and orange-juice messages. Like my mother, the callers seemed concerned about my health … and my health insurance. None seemed worried about the rings and dings of incoming messages damaging my ears.

Then that energy of yesteryear, that desire to be a little bigger and lot faster, was reawakened. Suddenly I wanted the invasive contacts to keep on coming. As old as I am, I was on the verge of a personal best.

For sanity’s sake my phone was silenced, but the vibrations continued. By midnight I had fifty calls and twenty texts offering me healthcare guidance. Most were addressed to “Frank,” but that didn’t matter. Their compassion was overwhelming.

In so many areas Father Time has limited the possibility of my getting a little better each day, but Ma Bell and robocalling may have offered me a world record. It felt good to be back in the game.