It only takes a second to fall from your pedestal, your position, your place, or your life, into the pit. The unexpected meeting, phone call, text, tragedy, collision, diagnosis, overdose, etc., changes your life in an instant. But one of the cruel realities of life is that the plunge into the pit is sudden, but the climb out is long and arduous.
Hitting the bottom makes you numb. The shock is jarring,
and initially, you can’t think, and you can’t feel. Unfortunately, when this
wears off, the pain arrives – overwhelming, debilitating pain. When some of the
pain subsides, you are ready to begin your climb out.
This process is grueling. For many people, it’s the most difficult challenge they will ever face. It is painfully slow, full of repeated setbacks. You will be frequently frustrated at your lack of progress. But you will move at the right pace for you.
It’s not important how fast you move, just that you keep moving forward. You may have to crawl, but just like an infant, you must learn to crawl before you walk. And to walk before you run.
And you will fail and fail repeatedly. And you will lose
and lose repeatedly. You will lose so often that people will consider you a
loser. At times you will feel like a loser. But let me assure you this: If you
are still in the game. If you are still at the table. If when you breathe in,
your lungs receive oxygen. You are not a loser. You are a warrior who has not
yet achieved the victory. Resilience is the most valuable trait you can possess.
(more of this in the next post). Crawl on, walk on, run on – Move forward.
For most of this journey, you will walk alone.
Unfortunately, you can’t rely on most people to help you out. The people who
hung with you at the top will quickly abandon you at the bottom. It’s just human
nature. However, there will be a few people, special people, who will help pull
you out of the pit. Cherish them – they are your true friends.
The most valuable skill you will acquire during this time
is the ability to recover from a failure or loss. Before your fall, a setback
in your life may have caused you distress for a month or more. But now, you
will fail repeatedly. You will fail so much that at some point, it barely phases
you at all. You will learn to take a punch and not be afraid to get hit again.
You will learn how to get knocked down and instinctively bounce back up. You
will become a human weeble. You will wobble, but you won’t fall down.
At some point, you face the acid test. After you have
suffered failures. After people view you as a failure. When people would rather
pity you than help you. Your success at climbing out of the pit comes down to
this:
EITHER YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF
– OR YOU DON’T
This is where you reach down deep and decide who you are,
what you have to offer, and where you want to go. And then make the choice:
EITHER YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF – OR YOU DON’T
It doesn’t matter who else believes in you, who else cares
for you, or who makes the effort to help you ….
EITHER YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF – OR YOU DON’T
There will be those dark days when you feel alone. You will
feel completely abandoned. You will
doubt yourself. You will feel as if no one cares.
It is at those times, for the people of FAITH to trust in
the promise of THE CREATOR, that he will never leave you nor forsake you. And
why are those words there? Why are they even in THE BOOK, when that truth seems
so obvious? Precisely for these dark days. Yes, you know it’s true, but you
need to hear it repeatedly in your journey upward. This truth is so essential
that it appears near the beginning of THE BOOK and is repeated again near the
end.
Learning how to lose. Acquiring the skill of regaining your
balance after getting knocked down. Believing in yourself. How well you do
these things, make the difference of whether you stay down, bounce back, or
bounce forward.
Good advice Don!
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