Attitude

"Americans tend to frame things in terms of contests and wars that must be won or lost. Many challenges, however, are about hanging in there and managing a bad situation." -- By JOHN SCHWARTZ

I've been talking with a new friend about life lessons. It's helped me to see some of my own issues, growth and places I still need to grow.

So I was instantly pulled to reading the article (link above) about Lessons Learned in the Losing.

The author is writing about his son Sam and describes him as a young child this way, "Sam, the poor guy, took after me. He was so clumsy that, if he was at a school desk and leaned over to pick up his backpack, he was likely to tip out of the chair and sprawl onto the floor."

I'd have to say it sounds a lot like my brother. Poor guy couldn't hit a baseball, sucked on the little league teams and really got picked on. Eventually he found his way.

When I read this story as well as chatting with my friend it makes me realize that many of us were not offered the lesson of how to hang in there when these rough moments happened.

I am not going to completely fault my mother. She probably just didn't know how to deal with these situations herself. I always saw my mother as a rock but the truth is it was just the hard exterior she learned to surround herself with.

If you grow up with parents that don't explain to you that everyone feels the same shitty things as you do and sees each let down as proof of your failure along with you, or your lack of how to know how to just muddle through, without the guidance to shepard you through those times, you're gonna grow up with a warped sense of who you are. And you're gonna teach others to think of you in that warped way too. And it's going to be cyclical.

One of the reason's I named my blog after the India Arie song was because of her soulful honesty. She seemed to speak directly to me. Her songs taught all the lessons that I had wished I learned as a child, that this author seems to have brought to his son Sam.

I also believe as the author does, that it's true that we learn the most from the lesson of loss.

It's all about reframing your thoughts on yourself and the situation. THAT is what gets each of us through all the hard moments in life.

Thank you to that friend (you know who you are) that has been my mirror.