"If I could just win the lottery, everything would be fine." "If I had been born rich..." "If I was the boss, things would sure be different." Sound familiar? Well, it should because every day we hear one more person tell us why they can't do something. There is always some reason why someone can't achieve their goals; or why the economy is in the shape it is in; or why we remain poor in the richest country (still!) in the world; Or why we can't afford go to college, ad infinitum. There will always be EXCUSES as long as there are people to offer them.
There is an old saying, "It is not whether you win or lose, it is how you lay the blame." This is as true today as it was when the phrase was first coined. It is much easier to give EXCUSES why we fail to achieve than to take ACCOUNTABILITY for our failures. For some reason, it has become a shame to fail at anything, so somewhere along the line we began offering EXCUSES as to why we failed. It makes the failure much easier to swallow.
There are a couple of things about failure that I want to make clear. First and foremost, there is no shame in failure so long as you tried and gave the very best effort you could give to the project. Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb on his first attempt. It took many failures before he succeeded in making it work. Still, if Edison had had the common mentality of today, he might well have said "I tried and it didn't work, so I am just going to give up and try something else."
The second thing about failure is that it is good for us to fail--sometimes. Life is not fair and there are times that you are going to fail. Sure it may seem that there is always someone that never seems to fail because they have what some of us perceive as an unfair advantage but rest assured, everyone fails sooner or later. If there is truly an unfair advantage, it will soon catch up to them. More often than not, that person who never seems to fail is in reality, someone who has already paid their dues to the god of failure and they have learned the secret to failure. In the next paragraph, I will share the secret to success.
Every successful businessman, actor, doctor, athlete, etc. knows this secret to success. It has nothing to do with someone else. It has nothing to do with privileged inheritance. Success depends on one person---YOU. Success depends on YOU and no one or nothing else. The people who fail, gave up before reaching the prize. The people who succeed simply got up one more time than they fell down.
So the next time you fail at something, GET BACK UP! The next time you fall, GET BACK UP! You can't be knocked down, if you refuse to stay down! GET BACK UP! Be like Rocky in the movies, GET BACK UP! failure can not defeat you if you refuse to give up. Resolve yourself to say TODAY I CHOOSE TO GET BACK UP!
Great blog post today!
ReplyDeleteEd, today I have chosen not to worry about an appointment I have with a surgeon regarding some "prehaps" upcoming surgery. I really like what you are doing here and this morning in one of my meditation books it was about accepting the peace of Christ during difficult times--that He always has our back! I thought it was right on about the choice I had to make as to how I would spend my day until 3pm. I choose peace, regardless.
ReplyDeletePatty, We face choices every day. Some people just fail to realize that acceptance of a "given situation" is a choice in itself. Even with medical decisions, we cannot just accept the status quo. God gives us all free will and what we choose to do with that free will is a determining factor in the longterm outcome of our given situation. I have known people who got a so called "death sentence" from the doctor with just weeks or months to live and because they refused to give up and just lay down and die, lived much longer than expected.
ReplyDeleteMy sister was one such person. She was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and just a few months to live. She CHOSE to not go gently into that good night and lasted nearly two years and her life and the lives of those she touched were greatly blessed because she chose to fight. She made a CHOICE to live her life out loud.
My prayers are with you and no matter the outcome, God is still God. He will get you through the trial and while I will pray for a miracle for you, sometimes the miracle is just touching someone else with your life. You have such a sweet spirit and you have blessed Kathy and Me with your words.
Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. Ps 46:11 NABRE