I whipped up this cartoon after watching an interview on TV so I can’t really take much credit for the idea. Art basically imitates life here. In the interview, the athlete was talking about how they gave it their all, their best effort and adds they could have pushed themself harder.
Students pull this logic on me all the time too. I always ask them if they’ve tried their best in the course. Often I’ll get responses like “yes, I gave it my best”. And then later in a follow-up question “I could have tried harder”. @_@