Walk it off, champ, walk it off

(Very brief background. Canadian election happened last night, and it broke my heart. Not going to dwell on it, but that’s the emotional palette I am painting with)

I’ve blogged about recovering from failure before, my belief that we grow and learn more from picking ourselves up from a fall than we would learn by avoiding the tumble in the first place. That sounds all well and good when you haven’t had a big loss in a while. When I’m staring a profound defeat in the face, though, I feel a wavering in my faith.  Maybe it would just be  better  to go with the flow, or maybe my standards and hopes for society are unreasonable and unachievable. I tend to have a hyperbolic reaction to challenging situations.

But when I think about the way I would have handled the possibility of defeat in my young’n’dumb days, I can see the world of great potential I close the door to when I hide from failure. If I don’t put myself out there to experience life, then the best parts of it will pass by as I hide in my bunker. And I won’t just rob myself of these opportunities by hiding. One of my duties as a dad is to be brave in the face of a sometimes scary world, and guide my little dude through these challenges to get to the truly wonderful parts of our  human existence.

And I do believe in the good of humanity. I believe we have to help each other, teach each other, and care for each other. I believe that we can both be prosperous and compassionate. No matter how bloody my nose gets, I will drag myself back to my feet and keep  going.

So it’s time to focus on the people around me. Time to remember how wonderful my family is, and to look forward to the great things we will encounter.  As Ani Difranco said in her song ‘As Is’:

“Cause when I look around
I think this, this is good enough
And I try to laugh
At whatever life brings
Cause when I look down
I just miss all the good stuff
When I look up
I just trip over things”