I am missing my mother today. So, I thought I would share a major life lesson that she is shared with me. I hope you enjoy the lesson.
If anyone tells you that they have never failed at anything in their life, then their expectations were really low or they are flat-out stringing you a series of ‘seriously tall tales’. Their perception of reality is certainly going to be different than everyone else’s.
To quote my mother, “every decision you ever made was a good decision .. the day you made it. It means it was the right decision for the time, the place, the event and the people involved.” She would always ask “What did you learn from it?” Followed by the scary discussion, “What would you do differently next time?”
When I was getting divorced, she laughed at the response “Never get married again.” She knew that I had learned what I needed and just needed to calm down. She was right. The lesson in the divorce was to put my daughter first and then everything else would fall into place. It was difficult to act with grace and dignity but Grace would accept no less from me and taught me to accept no less from myself.
Failure is a part of life. Failure is not a challenge, failure something that did not turn out as expected often with catastrophic results. A challenge is in the future, a failure has already happened. Over the last 20 years, we have started to treat failure as a character flaw. Failure is a fundamental part of learning to be a better you, a better family member, a better friend, a better colleague, and an overall better member of the human race. It is crucial that failure not become a reason for not dusting ourselves off and taking action to learn from the situation.
“Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It’s OK to fail. If you’re not failing, you’re not growing.” H. Stanley Judd
It has been a really rough few days. But, I have learned a lot. Sometimes, facing reality just plain stinks. We have a crucial team member with personal struggles and it is affecting us all. When you run like a well oiled machine, it is very evident when everyone isn’t firing on all cylinders. The old story about a chain only being as strong as its weakest link is very true. We are all feeling like we are on a hamster wheel. Lots of motion but not much forward momentum. The only good news out of all of this is that we are like my grandfather’s team of horses. We are all pulling in the same direction and supporting each other. We won’t upset the wagon or the plough.
It is important to remember that we only have the 60 seconds that we are in so I am going to use my 60 seconds to have a virtual glass of wine. My husband will join me on a call. I’ll have a glass of wine and he’ll have a beer. I will talk, he will listen, and vice versa.
In another time, I would have been able to call my mother and she would walk me back from the ledge. But, she is in a much better place. I am sure that she has St. Peter organized beyond what he thought was possible. Mom, you would have enjoyed the rant. I miss you and thanks for the lesson.
