I have failed and that's why I succeed.

I have felt defeated.  Over the years, I've taken my share of hard knocks.  I have faith that God has given me no challenge that I cannot overcome, but that doesn't mean that I haven't felt like I had nowhere to go.  I have felt like it was the end of the world.  I have felt like giving up.  I have wanted to crawl under a rock and shrivel away to nothing because I thought everything was over.  I've lost almost everything that I have three times in my life.  Once because I was young and dumb.  The second time because the economy went to hell in a handbasket.  The third time because I wanted to keep a promise to my kids.  I have no regrets for that last one.  I pretty much walked away from that with a car and a motorcycle, but my one child actually got to finish high school with all his friends.  I wish I could have done that for all 3 boys, but sometimes life just doesn't give you what you want.  I tried.  

So when someone sits there wallowing away in their own failures, I do not get it.  Some things we bring on ourselves by our actions, but others we bring on ourselves by own inactions.  Maybe it's the stubborn Granddaddy or Daddy that I had that instilled that pick yourself off the ground and try again.  Maybe it's a little bit of the military in me--adapt and overcome, over, under, around or straight through.  I've wanted to quit.  I was failing thermodynamics and I wanted to change majors from mechanical engineering to electrical.  I had to take 4 electrical classes because I was specializing in mechatronics.  As a former electrical technician, I was aceing the classes without even attending class.  While thermo had me feeling like a total failure--what the hell is entropy?  "Energy created"?  Everyone that knows basic physics knows energy is neither destroyed or created.  It just changes form.  I was so frustrated that I wanted to give up on the whole dream of finishing my mechanical engineering degree.  I went to the undergrad coordinator for mechanical engineering, one of my mentors, with a change major request in hand.  All I needed was his signature.  He looked it over, looked up at me, said "no" and slid the paper back at me.  What?  Did he not hear me explain how thermo was kicking my ass?  I was failing.  Yes, he had heard me and his answer was still no.  Ugh.   He simply explained to me that he had straight A students that didn't "get" the mechanics like I did and he wasn't going to let me give up.  I'd have to take the class over, in his mind I'd ace it the second time around, and that was the end of the discussion.  So...yes, I took it the second time and yes, I did ace the class.  So the overall grade averaged to a C.  By the way, for those that are even curious, energy isn't created or destroyed.  That whole entropy thing is energy that we cannot account for that is lost to the universe (or "created" to the universe to do whatever it wants to with).  The point is that either way, I wasn't wallowing away in my failure.  I had adapted and figured out another way to skin the cat.  My mentor actually had a better way for me to skin the cat.  But I wasn't quitting either way.  I'm glad he convinced me, or forced me, to not quit his way.  Mine would have probably sucked, because I love the mechanical engineering part of my job the most.

Of course, sometimes there's no one to pull you up but you.  I thought I was going to die when my ex cheated on me when I was pregnant.  But I found what was more important to me--my babies.  Sometimes it's about finding that one thing that motivates you to do better.  No matter what providing for my boys was always one of the top things on my list and no matter what went wrong in my life being there for them trumped all.  I can't understand how anyone brings a life into this world and somehow loses the ability or doesn't develop the ability to be there through thick, thin, hurricane and sunshine for their children.  I tend to believe there is a special place in hell or a lower life form since I believe in reincarnation for people like that.  You cannot create a life and not try your best to be there for them.  It's just not right in so many ways, and that sense of responsibility to them can help someone pull themselves back up and do what they've got to do.  When the economy tanked, I needed to make drastic sacrifices--either move or drive at least 1.5 hours each way to work.  I eventually ended up with the best option that I had at the time and I'm grateful for that.    

But honestly, the hardest pulling yourself up is when it's just on you.  Finding something to motivate you when you think there's nothing to motivate you.  Sometimes that motivation just has to come from inside you.  The hardest thing for most people to achieve is believing in themselves, but if you don't believe in you, how do you expect other people to?  I watch people that wallow away in their own crap all the time.  They settle for just getting by but they aren't happy but they convince themselves that at least they aren't miserable.  Of course, I'd argue if you aren't actually happy with your life as a whole, then you actually are miserable.  You just won't admit it.  Oh, I know. It's easier to fool ourselves into believing we aren't failing by not even trying.  But not trying is failing.  You know I'm right.  When you stop trying to be a better you, give up on your goals, have no goals, no aspirations you basically put yourself in that drowning hole where you leave yourself with nothing to hope for and nothing for you.  The saddest part about this is that you just sink and sink and sink.  The longer you wallow, the harder it becomes to get out of it.  It's not like a vicious circle--it's like being on a sinking ship.  Eventually you lose you and if that happens, it will feel like it's impossible to get back to you.  It's like climbing Mount Everest, and the irony is you have no one to blame but yourself. 

Sure.  Divorce, a failed business, a failed job, a health issue, there are just so many things that can put you in that unsure of yourself position.  Believe it or not, we all have them, but how long you wallow is on you.  How long you let it drag you down is on you.  Of course, we all need a little recovery time--time to lick our wounds and recover.  Time to get to the point that we light the bunson burner under our butts and get started doing the things that make us feel proud of ourselves, like we are accomplishing something, give us something to feel good about ourselves.  I've wallowed.  About 3 months normally.  To adlib something that Michael Jordan said, "I have failed and that's why I succeed."  My failures are learning experiences and each of them have made me who I am today.  And they have ultimately become the reason that I have succeeded.  Failures shouldn't be your reason for giving up.  They should be your reason to reevaluate where you are, where you want to be, and ironically, they are the reasons that you become a better you and get where you ultimately actually belong.