Moving past defeat

When a coin is flipped there is always a winner and a loser. The majority of sports competitions end with a winner and a loser. Business’ compete with some business coming out on top (Best Buy), while other business’ do not last (Circuit City).

Each one of us knows that we will face defeat at different times in life. Thankfully there is a saying to address the issue. The saying starts with a question and ends with a statement. It goes like this, “Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up!” This saying seems simple but in reality the principle behind it holds tremendous value. When we learn to pick ourselves up from our failures it is critical that we take away two lessons: 1) We walk away with the knowledge of how we failed, and how we can avoid that failure in the future, 2) More importantly we discover what we are made by how we react to the failure. It is our choice if we let the failure haunt us, or we can choose to brush our shoulders off and push forward.

My personal experience playing sports proved to be an experience of learning dealing with failure. Riding the bench and numerous injuries didn’t allow me to find much glory in what I was doing. I often felt as if I was failing, especially during the last 4 years I played sports. In hindsight these struggles allowed me to pick myself up once my time playing sports was finished. It took me about a year after I was done with sports to get my act together, but since then I have been rather diligent in taking care of my physical health. From my failures I discovered that even without sports there are still many enjoyable physical activities you can do. Now as I participate in other activities I am able to thoroughly enjoy them. Even more importantly I still have the desire to push myself to a higher level, this is a lesson I still carry with me from the years in which I did play sports. All in all my experiences with sports proved to be valuable and I have no regrets looking back. I can genuinely say I have learned from my failures.

If you have recently faced a failure of your own or if you have even felt defeated about something for a long time, it is my hope and prayer that you can find the courage to move forward. Even if it has been years since you have really faced up to your defeat I trust you can still press on to bigger and better things. Life is a journey with many hills and valleys. Hopefully with some faith and belief you are able to move from the valleys to climb even bigger hills in the future.

You may be without a job, you may have a broken relationship, you may have an illness, you may be depressed, no matter what the situation, faith and hope can eventually lead you to overcome your defeat.

‘Don’t stop believing’…a great song by Journey. Here is a link to the song: Journey You Tube. It is a strange video of some kid performing a music video to the song.