Failure

What is worse failing or the regret from not trying?

In the moment, failing feels worse.

Failure, as long as you give everything, should never lead to regret.

Not trying always leads to regret.

The what ifs. What if I had succeeded? What if things had gone my way?

How do you know you would have failed if you haven’t tried?

To me regret is worse. You just don’t know what would have happened.

If you fail, you have the information to learn the next time.

No matter how old you are the story is never written.

As long as you are above the soil you have time to do great things.

You will fail.

Dust yourself off, learn from it, and keep going.

The Right Path

“You can see what needs to be done. If you can see the road, follow it. Cheerfully without turning back. If not, hold up and get the best advice you can. If anything gets in the way, forge on ahead, making good use of what you have on hand sticking to what seems right.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 10.12

I have not always followed the right path. I have not always made the best decisions.

We get caught up in the moment. What we think is a good decision at the time doesn’t look so good in the light of the next day.

That’s ok. Today I can find the right path.

We all think the right path is straight. That is not the case.

The right path has twists and turns. It even has switchbacks and places where you have to turn around and start over.

“Sometimes the right path is not the easiest one.” – Pocahontoas

Keep pressing on. If the right path were the easy path everyone would take it.

The right path will knock you down. It might even humiliate you.

You must find the courage to keep going. Put your head down, ignore the noise, and do the work.

Amor Fati

Amor Fati means love one’s fate.

Friedrich Nietzsche created the idea.

“That one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backwards, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it….but love it.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

When life is going good Amor Fati is easy. All’s good. No reason to regret anything. Loving life.

When life starts throwing challenges at you that’s when Amor Fati becomes difficult.

But if you read Nietzsche’s quote carefully he doesn’t say love your fate when it’s easy. He says “one wants nothing to be different.”

Everything happens for a reason. We may not be able to see or comprehend it at the time, but the reason is there.

Bad things will happen. That’s inevitable. Why try to pretend they won’t?

We would all love life to go our way all the time. That’s not reality.

“Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy.” – Epictetus

As much as we try, we do not control what happens to us. We only control our response to what happens.

Why be miserable? It is what it is, and it will be what it will be.

Life is too short not to love that you are alive.

Every day is a gift. Even the bad ones.

Nobody Is Perfect

Even the greats have flaws.

We have to be more willing to look at ourselves for our accomplishments and for our mistakes.

Resting on your laurels because you succeeded is easy and lazy.

What can you learn from when you haven’t been at our best?

Taking a hard look at ourselves because we screwed up is hard.

But that is our path to growth.

“We learn from failure, not from success!” – Bram Stoker

52

As the person who is in charge of hiring for my district, I come across a lot of email addresses. A good portion of these email addresses have numbers in them. Every time I see an email with a number, it makes me wonder what’s the significance? I realize that some are just random numbers that were assigned when the person signed up for the account. However I think for a good portion of these people that number has some significance.

I am one of those people with a number in my email address. The number 52 is not a random number assigned when I signed up for my account. It is my jersey number from my days playing college football at Hampton Sydney College.

I know a lot of people will say, “Oh, he’s one of those guys, who can’t let go of past glory days.” True, but more important to me is the fact that this number reminds me every day all of the things that sports taught me growing up that I think are really important for the development of every generation of young men and women.

Sports taught me:

Failure – I probably lost more games than I won. Sports taught me that there is always another game, another season to prepare for. If you live inside your head for two long, perseverating on a loss, then you will end up losing next week.
Resilience – the old adage you can’t win them all is certainly true. So after a loss or a failure, what do you do? Well. You learn from your mistakes and keep going.
Grit – Angela Duckworth in her book of the same name, defines grit as passion and perseverance. It is so much easier to keep going when you love what you are doing. It also helps to have other passionate people around you for support.
Teamwork – No one achieves success in sports or life by themselves. We rely on our teammates to pick us up when we are down and vice versa.

Unfortunately due to our current situation, sports have been shut down. As educators we are trying to continue the learning the best we can, but the fields of play have gone silent. I would say that 50% of what I learned, that has made me successful, has been from sports. As we move forward to a new “normal,” let’s not forget the impact that sports have in young people’s lives in preparing them to be the leaders of the future. Let’s make sure that they can get back out on the field as soon as it is safe.