Month: January 2017

Labels

There is a lot of consternation out there the last couple days about the Executive Order banning immigrants from seven Muslim countries in order to prevent terrorists from entering the country. While there is a lot of arguing from both sides, I want to focus this post on one specific aspect of this issue-the application of labels. Let’s think about this for a minute:

Is it right to label every citizen from those seven countries as Muslim? No. That would be equivalent to labeling every US citizen as Christian and we all know that isn’t true. Even if you factor in the point that some of these countries don’t allow freedom of religion, you can’t accurately label the entire citizenry with Islam.

Is it right to label every citizen from these countries as potential terrorists? No. That would be like labeling every single, lonely, bald headed white guy a terrorist because of supremacist groups. Of course there are terrorists in those countries interested in finding their way to our shores to carry out what they believe is a righteous crusade against us infidels, but the majority of the immigrants from those countries trying to reach our shores are the kinds of people most world religions tell us to care for and love.

Labels, like many things can be used for good or bad purposes. They help us distinguish things which helps us make choices but also leads to discrimination (a different manifestation of choice.) They allow us to take pride in who and what we are such as my immense pride in being an American (label) with Norwegian heritage (label) who proudly served in uniform (label) and has a beautiful family (label). On the other hand, it can be used by others to apply labels to us which we didn’t ask for but allow others to discriminate me from the next person. I really find it interesting when groups who fight discrimination such as the LGBTQ community reinforce labels that make them stand out while saying they just want to be treated like everyone else. I recently saw a National Geographic cover that had seven different gender categories, yet I truly believe each of the people posing on the cover under each of those categories wants to be treated the same as anyone else.

Let me finish with a famous story that talks about the problem with labels. Up until 1976, France was unequivocally recognized as the world’s premier wine producer for as long as anyone could remember. French citizens and officials boasted about their prowess at every available opportunity. However, in 1976, an English wine merchant in Paris conducted a blind taste test between several of the best wines produced in France and California. Amazingly, the wine experts (and they were truly renowned experts) who judged these wines guessed the origins of many wines incorrectly and the California wines came out on top when there wasn’t a label to bias their judgement. This story is captured in much better detail and color in a book titles “Judgment in Paris.” Check it out and then think about the labels we each apply that limit our thinking about things and people we know.

Today’s post compliments yesterday’s post by building on the theme – that we rule our emotions and that ideas have power.  To paraphrase Victor Hugo, armies can be resisted – ideas cannot.  All of us will encounter the naysayer at the office, among our friends, or at home.  It’s important to not let them get you down and not let them dissuade you from pursuing your ideas.

This blog was an idea that we (the Dad squad) refused to let languish and go away.  The idea of sharing our thoughts, experiences, ideas, and life’s lessons is as much for our children as it is an engine for more ideas. John Locke, the English philosopher is quoted saying, “The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.”  Write down your ideas, discuss them with someone you trust, and make them happen.

An excellent Bible verse that compliments this idea is from the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” That’s great advice – concentrate on the good or as Ballou sang in the movie the Jungle Book, “Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative…” Rule your emotions, rule your ideas.

I’ll close this post with another good quote from yet another British philosopher and poet, James Allen who wrote, “You are today where your thoughts have brought you. You will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”

Dream big – go big.

Invictus

BY William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

I have always liked this poem because of the message it conveys – personal responsibility and not letting others get you down.  This message is also conveyed in the wonderful book by Viktor Frankl, A Man’s Search for Meaning. Both the poem and the book emphasis the how we react to the world is entirely controlled by ourselves – not others.  This is supremely important when dealing with troublesome coworkers, bosses, or even loved ones.  You cannot let someone else rule your emotions.  Another favorite idea of mine is that I write the story of my life –  I refuse to write myself as a victim.

All I ever wanted for my children is to understand and to hold dear the idea – they, and they alone are the master of their ship.  Refuse to be a victim, refuse to have others steal your happiness.  Viktor Frankl talked about the space between what a person does to you, and how you choose to respond.  Master that space – and master your emotions.

I’d like to close this post with one of my favorite Bible passages – I think it complements this idea perfectly Proverbs 16:32,  He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.

This week has been one for celebrating growth, so far as failure brings growth when embraced and learned from.  I can’t say I am excited about having had the opportunity to grow so much in such a short period of time.  Truth be told, it wasn’t so much the number of failures but the magnitude and unexpectedness of them.  One major event late last week came completely out of the blue as my reaction to an adversity I have made pains to accept turned to rage and anger at the injustice of it and my inability to correctly cope with it.  The problem wasn’t so much the surface problem as it was my response and my absolutely poor reaction to it.  I was mad at the issue, I was mad at God and I was mad at myself for being mad about it.  As a result, I overreacted and pushed myself into a bad state.  The second incident was related to the first and was in response to how I handled failing the first time.  This second time, I overreacted the other direction and forced myself beyond what was necessary to justify that I had picked myself up and resolved to be better.  It was classic “as God as my witness, I’ll never drink again” syndrome.  I went so far the other direction, however, that I lost perspective on how to healthily deal with the issues at hand.

The third incident was more minor, but annoyingly familiar.  I began trudging through my work week when I realized that not only had I forgotten some of the things I had scheduled to do, but I completely messed up my schedule going forward by double and triple booking my time.  It happened pretty much by negligence, but it caused an undue amount of stress, a lot of apologizing and several late nights to fix.  In conjunction with that, I realized that not only had I failed to file some paperwork that needed to be in, but I also forgot to book my upcoming travel, again causing stress and a little bit of panic.  To make it more interesting, I had even more things pile onto the mess that already was my plans and caused churn yet again.

The last set of incidents were also largely self-inflicted and revolved around my desire to cram more training and new technology into an already overcrowded life.  Between studies and equipment setup, I lost even more time that would have been better used on other projects.

So, what did I learn in all of this, you ask?  Well, the first thing I learned was that I have a lot of things I can learn from this.  That sounds a little trite, but if you look at failure and missteps without looking for what you can learn from it, you lose yet another opportunity for growth.  In no particular order, here are some of the other things I learned.

1. I really need to take the time to integrate all of my calendars in a single master calendar available to me on my phone on demand.
2. I need to start putting due dates on my calendar and I need to do the nearest things first, not the easiest.
3. I need to do my paperwork as soon as things are completed and I need to book my trips as soon as they are scheduled.
4. I need to accept and understand the fact that getting angry is not failure, but responding poorly can be.  Accordingly, I need to decide when I am not in the moment how I will respond.  If I respond in the moment, it’ll probably be wrong.
5. God doesn’t hate us for getting upset, angry and even responding wrong.  He loves us and wants to show us more about Himself, His strength, and His ability to work miracles when we are at our weakest and our lowest.  He is big enough to handle our questions and our rants and regardless of how things appear to us or how events unfold, He is good.
6. I need to understand and accept the fact that bottling up frustration and trying to tough it out is ultimately setting me up for failure.  I need to reach out before it gets critical, not after.
7. Finally, I need to remember my own advice in earlier posts and choose to be at peace and at rest during the churn.

One of my former bosses used to say, “you have to go slow sometimes to go fast”.  By that he meant that in stressful and tense situations, you need to calm yourself down so that your mind can process how best to act, rather than your gut dictating how you react.  I always appreciated that line, and, this week, I better understood it.

Today, I decided to write on several topics, including, the lessons learned at my off-site meetings (e.g., pick your seat where you aren’t facing the sun first thing in the morning, plan your coffee consumption to coincide with your breaks, etc.), when it is appropriate to make comparisons with Hitler and the Nazis (e.g., unless you are talking about genocide on par with Lenin and Stalin, then never), and why days off are awesome (they just are…).  None of these seemed to really inspire me, though, and, truth be told, I really haven’t been in an inspiring mood.  That’s when it hit me.  The purpose of this blog was not to inspire you every day, but rather to share some of the thoughts, experiences, history and life lessons we have learned over the years.  So, with that as my goal, I’d like to tell you a little bit about myself and my fellow authors.  Admittedly, I was thinking about saving this for a later date, but I believe it is important to say things while you are thinking them and while you can, so…

I had the great honor of meeting my co-authors through a glitch in the US Air Force, which put us all together as Russian Interpreters at the On-Site Inspection Agency.  Unlike other special duty assignments or organizations, every USAF interpreter after the initial group had to be interviewed, pass language proficiency tests, pass a background review and then pass the Russian Language course at the Defense Language Institute at the highest levels in order to make the cut.  While we had our share of guys who weren’t as competitive, it should go without saying that most of us, including the three of us were very competitive and driven to succeed.  Honestly, it was the first time in my life I had been forced to confront several concepts at once…and it was daunting.  First, for the first time, I was surrounded by people as good or better than I was.  Second, I was competing in an arena that I was not sure I could compete in.  Third, they didn’t seem to have weaknesses, whereas I knew what mine were.  It was the first time in my life I had to face a major challenge that I could not run from and hide underneath the table.  🙂

This turned out to be one of the greatest blessings I could ever have hoped for, because it introduced me to two men who have both challenged and inspired me.  We did great things and you guys should know about them, because many of you were too young to remember and you should be proud of your dads and moms and the sacrifices they made for you.  Our job was to be interpreters for inspection and escort missions taking place between the Former Soviet Union and the United States under the nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and other treaties signed between the nations.  By the time we got to OSIA the Soviet Union had dissolved into its current state, however, the threat was very real.  For the duration of our lives we had grown up in fear of the USA and the USSR unleashing a nuclear apocalypse that would destroy the world.  If you go back and watch movies like Failsafe, War Games and Red Dawn, you get a little, somewhat kitschy, glimpse into the national mindset, but truthfully, we all thought there was a real chance that we would end up in a shooting war with the Soviets and there was a good chance we’d be mutually destroyed.  No less a genius than Einstein predicted such a thing, when he said, “about the next war, I cannot say, but the war after that will be fought with rocks.”

When the US and the USSR, under Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev sat down and negotiated both the treaties and a verification process to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and walk us back from the edge, we saw the first light at the end of the “mutually assured destruction” tunnel.  The first agreements led to accords on nuclear testing, chemical weapons, and other weaponry and set the stage for US-Soviet relations to finally warm.  The pointy end of the spear was to be the inspection and escort teams and the people responsible for ensuring these teams communicated and worked together properly were the interpreters.  Sure, we had additional duties on the teams, but our primary role was to express not just the words, but the intent of the teams and to do so between individuals who had been raised to believe the other side was evil.  It was into this arena we stepped.

I still remember my first trip.  The mission was going okay, but there was a Russian Colonel on the other side who drank heavily and was visibly offended that he had to treat these enemies as equals.  On the last day of the inspection, the Colonel, drunk as normal, declared that his people and command were what stood between the glory of Russia and the evil of the US, who “was the only nation to use nuclear weapons against its enemies”.  At this point, when emotions were high, our team chief said something impolitic, however the lead interpreter, with grace and diplomacy, defused the situation and backed both teams back from the edge.  This was one of many, many war stories that I encourage you to ask your parents about.  They probably don’t talk about them very often because they are pretty humble people (yes, your parents…) and yet their actions, whether at home or abroad, made the world a safer place for you today.  While I don’t want to nor would ever neglect how your moms made everything we do possible and were stronger in many ways than we were, I want to let you in on a couple of secrets about your dads.

Without breaking Chatham House Rules (look it up, I can’t force feed you everything and that’s why we have Google anyway), let me list just a few things your dads did.  They were involved in the actual destruction of former Soviet nuclear launch silos that were pointed at the US.  They inspected nuclear and chemical weapons production and storage facilities, exposing themselves to hazardous conditions to ensure that every potential weapon or weapon component was accounted for.  They assisted in the delivery of food and medical supplies to war-ravaged areas of the former Soviet Republics, like Georgia, Azerbaijan, and others.  They served as official representatives of the US government at NATO and other conferences.  They advised ambassadors, political appointees, and many other governmental organizations, and they did it for low pay and little to no recognition.  They served with distinction, but most importantly, they served.  They put others before themselves, they sacrificed time with family and friends and career opportunities, and they did it without complaint, without fanfare, and without pause.  They did this because they believed and still believe that their actions made the world better.  It didn’t fix the problems, but it made at least a small difference, and that difference would be better for everyone, particularly you.

Now, while all of that sounds inspiring, trust me, your dads were also idiots at times and made their fair share of mistakes.  I am sure those stories will come out too, however, I thought it was important for you all to know that your dads are some of the finest men to walk this earth.  They may not be perfect, but they are honorable and good.  They are some of the strongest advocates you will ever have in your corner and they are always, always, on your side.  For all of the things they gave in service to our nation, they will do all that and more for you, because they love you.  So, whenever times get tough…and they will, and whenever things look bleak…and they will, remember this.  You have a Heavenly Father, who is perfect and always on your side, and He has blessed you with earthly fathers, who, while human and prone to mistakes, love you and are always there for you, regardless of the challenge or likelihood of success.

Finally, to my fellow authors.  Gentlemen, I have never been very good at expressing my feelings for people.  I have always been reserved and guarded in what I say.  However, it has been an honor and a blessing knowing you both and working with you.  You have inspired me, pushed me and made me better.  My only regret is that we didn’t meet earlier in life.  So, my friends, my brothers, thank you, and know that I stand with you, proudly, and without reservation.

A Speck of Dust for Posterity

After Jay came to us with the brilliant idea for Out Digital Dust, we had some really good conversations about the purpose for this effort. One of the ideas we discussed is the ability to leave something (our digital Dust) for future generations of our families to give them insight into the people we are. We’ve all researched our genealogy to some degree and been frustrated by the fact that sometime we only have cold, faceless government records to describe our relatives. This post is in that vein. I’ve had dozens of opportunities to speak in front of large groups for my job. Unfortunately, my family has never heard one of those presentations. Here are my comments shared with my coworkers at a ceremony for Dr Martin Luther King this week. I hope they tell my kids and their kids, etc something about me as well

“The ultimate measure of a man is not what he stands for in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

I first heard this quote during an NCO leadership course at my first duty station in the Air Force. My instructor challenged me with this quote because I was mailing it in during the course. The requirements of the course were easy to me and I did the minimum required to meet them, but he saw potential for much more. This quote has resonated with me over and over again through the past four years in both my personal and professional life. Professionally, I’ve progressed through some pretty challenging and complex responsibilities and plenty of controversial decision points for me and others. There have been several times during the past four years when I wondered if the investment in my time, my physical well-being or the relationships that were impacted were worth the fight and I confided in trusted friends who gave me the support and advice I needed to tackle the challenge and controversy head on. Ultimately, it fell on me to decide how I would respond to those difficult times…with confidence or doubt, with combativeness or collaboration, with energy to complete the task or with wilting submission and resignation that would disappoint my teammates and friends. We rarely accomplish anything on our own—if we just look left and right there are always teammates to rely on. I know that from repeated and very recent experiences, but the decision, our choice, to act in the face of challenge and controversy is ours alone and how we respond impacts everyone around us in some way.

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

Now this quote might seem a little odd for a discussion in a federal workplace at an event sponsored by lawyers. But it epitomizes the man Dr. King chose to be and the force he chose to wield against the enemy he faced. As a deeply spiritual man, Dr. King relied on his knowledge of the Scriptures to understand that the positive power of love, often described in terms or light versus darkness, always overcomes the negativity of hate or anger. So how does this apply to us here at NGA? We each have a choice to have a positive or negative attitude when we arrive at our places of work. This choice impacts how we tackle every decision, every action and every engagement we have during our day. I see too many examples where we use the precious power of our voice through quick jabs at new programs or snarky comments on a Graffiti Wall. Dr. King’s example shows us that we will accomplish great things by taking a positive approach to our work—negative or hateful attitudes simply create more work, more stress, more delays and divisiveness that increase our burdens.

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

This is about perspective. We all walk through life facing our own individual challenges and concerns and it’s easy and tempting to immerse ourselves in what we need to get done to address those issues or advance our own cause. We do this as individuals and we do this as organizational entities. Throughout the agency, each layer down in our structure we narrow our mission perspective and define the tasks that we need to accomplish to close on our partners or boss’ priorities. Of course we should all work diligently to accomplish the tasks we’ve been given, but if we lose perspective of the larger effort—the agency’s mission and our nations need for us to evolve as a key cog in the national security apparatus—our accomplishments and the investments we make with taxpayer dollars is minimized and loses relevance. We have to exhibit the strength of character and confidence in our knowledge of our own capabilities to contribute to a higher cause which sometimes means setting aside our personal or organizational concerns or desires in order to accomplish something great that positively impacts the collective.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”

You may have noticed a theme throughout the discussion about the quotes by Dr. King.  It all really comes down to a choice. We make these choices throughout our lives, sometimes with great thought and deliberation and other times on a whim or gut feeling. The choices always impact others in addition to ourselves, but the responsibility for the choice rests with us alone. This quote speaks to me about one of the most significant choices we make, but it’s often misinterpreted as a choice that is beyond our control. Clint Jones, a teacher from nearby Prince George’s county, gave an amazing TED talk about the danger of silence.  In this talk, he notes that our voice is like our dignity.  It cannot be taken away or stolen from us…we can only surrender it through ambivalence, desire to please others instead of speaking candidly, efforts to get along in order to get ahead so we don’t speak up.  He describes silence as the residue of fear. Powerful words that shoot straight into our hearts and challenge our character when we sit back and “get by.” This isn’t a mandate to confront and combat things we don’t like; but it is a clarion call to challenge bad ideas, bad behavior or bad leadership so we can accomplish more for us all.

What I Learned from Garth Brooks

Okay, so the title is intentionally deceiving.  I’ve never met Garth Brooks.
I’ve never been to a Garth Brooks concert. So what could I have learned from
a person I’ve never met and never seen perform their job? Here it is:

Remember to focus on the person who has the worst seat in the house.

While I’ve never met or seen Garth Brooks in concert, several years ago I
watched an interview with him about his booming career and the show he puts
on for his fans. During that interview, he said that his approach to every
concert ensures that every fan has the best possible experience they can for
the money they paid for their tickets. One thing he does to meet this goal
is to focus on the worst seat in the house. When he gets to a new city, he
makes his way to the concert venue and finds the absolute worst seat in the
house, plops down in that seat and then devises a plan to make sure that fan
walks away from the concert feeling like the entire show was directed at
them. There are several lessons to be taken from this example.

1) Don’t dole out your attention, affection or anything else based on the
things others have given you. The fan Garth focuses on paid the least money
of any fan at that concert. In fact, some fans may have paid an order of
magnitude more than that fan. But the bottom line is that they are all
paying for the exact same thing–the show. Some might have more cash to
spend; some might have more time to spend waiting to pounce on tickets when
they go on sale; some may just be lucky and win tickets. None of that
matters to this entertainer though because he feels they all deserve his
best effort to entertain them.

2) Don’t lose sight of people because they aren’t directly in your line of
sight. It’s easy for a performer to focus on the fans in the front row or in
the mosh pit cramming up against the stage.  Their faces are right there
looking up in awe and screaming, singing or reacting to the next firework or
unexpected song. Those folks only comprise about one percent of the
audience. That one percent might be the most important people in your life,
but others need you attention, affection and time as well–sometimes more
than the one percent. This isn’t an argument for ignoring the one
percent–it’s a reminder to not ignore the 99 percent.

We all get to be Garth Brooks in our own lives.  We also get to be the
person in the worst seat in the house in some of our relationships. When
that happens, soak it up and figure out how to do a better job for that
person when you’re on stage.

I just finished reading Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler (outstanding book by the way) and it spurred me to list all the things that are better today than my grandparents, and parents, had just 50 short years ago. We need more positive thoughts and ideas in our lives with so much negative information on TV and on the internet.

So in no particular order:

1. Central air. My Dad remembers the first time he had air conditioning – he was 25.
2. Cell Phones. I still remember my grandmother’s telephone, it was a party line. That meant that you had to wait to use the phone – and it rang in multiple homes. She could remember when the first telephone arrived in her home town. Everyone wanted to use it – but they had no one to call. Speaking of cell phones, do you realize that it has replaced, on average, about 500 pounds and 10 thousand dollars’ worth of books and appliances from the 1970s? A set of encyclopedias, a dictionary, a globe or atlas, a calculator, a computer, a television, a camera, a scanner, a flashlight, a radio, 10,000+ vinyl records, etc. Imagine – or don’t, I still remember all those things.
3. Credit cards and ATMs. No more writing checks or waiting for the bank to open to get your money – and you couldn’t get your money if you traveled out of town unless the place you were going took out of town checks.
4. Cable TV. I still remember when there were only 3 channels (CBS, NBC, ABC) and if you were in a big city, possible PBS.
5. Automobiles. More choices, they are safer, more comfortable, and have more onboard entertainment than my parents or grandparents had in their houses. And cars have seatbelts and people use them for the most part. I remember my grandfather’s old Chevy didn’t have seatbelts.
6. Better Roads: You wouldn’t believe me if I told you – but the roads today are MUCH better. Better marked, safer, and better engineered.
7. Office Work. We now have laser printers, color copiers, scanners, video teleconferencing, email, and the list goes on. I remember when you had a notepad and a shared typewriter.
8. Computer spreadsheets. There was a time when you had to hire an accountant to do the functions possible by anyone with a basic knowledge of excel and some time.
9. Air Travel. I remember when planes had a smoking section – yuck.  My grandmother never flew on an airplane. Air travel is faster, safer, and more comfortable than taking a train was 100 years ago.
10. Food. More variety, more ethnic choices, and fresher produce. I remember when Chinese TV dinners were exotic. I don’t think my Grandfather ever had Thai, Indian, Japanese, Russian, Greek, or Middle Eastern food. It was never available to him – now those ethnic choices are available in almost every mid-sized American city.
11. Health. Infant mortality was mother’s dying in childbirth was a real worry when my mother was born. Now they are an anomaly with modern medicine. At the turn of the last century Polio was a major medical scourge – it’s almost non-existent now. Breaks throughs with stem cell treatment and cancer research along with other medical breakthroughs will make for better quality of life for the elderly.
I could go on and on. No matter what you read or hear – our future holds abundant promise and it should make everyone smile knowing where we are compared to what our grandparents had. Be thankful, and enjoy the wonders to come.

Today I may seem like I am contradicting myself on participation after yesterday’s post, but I think there is a harmony between the two if we look at it in greater detail.  Participation is a good thing, but, in my opinion, participation trophies are a bad idea.  Don’t get me wrong, I think it is important to encourage and support our kids as they try new things and as they stretch themselves.  We need to be there, cheering them on, celebrating their efforts “in the arena”, but I think our efforts to protect their egos and psyche from the concept of losing and failing is misguided and, ultimately, harmful.  No one likes to fail.  Losing sucks and, in that moment, we are confronted with raw, painful choices.  It is these choices and these moments, however that create the most growth.

Failing forces us to evaluate a lot of things and brings out character traits in us, some good and some bad, that we rarely see in just day-to-day life.  In some of my most significant failures (and there have been more than a few), I have learned a lot about who I REALLY am, not just the person I wish to be, and that provides me with a good baseline for improving going forward.  In those dark times, I have seen the part of me that wants to just give up and never try again.  I have seen a more mentally tough side of myself (it sounds better than stubborn) that resolves to get better, try again and find a way to succeed.  I have seen a side of me that says “Edison failed 10,000 times before making the lightbulb” and another side that says, “I can’t deal with the hurt that many times.”  I have experienced the self-doubt, the insecurity, the fear, the depression, and the hurt…and it has made me a better person, because it forced me to realize that failure and losing is an event, not a characteristic.  Once I realized that going through bad things doesn’t make me personally bad, my eyes became open to the possibility that bad things can sometimes be the best thing for us to experience.

It seems contrary to logic for bad things to be good, but there is a special relationship between what appears to be opposing sides.  In reality, contrary positions tend to be complementary. Contrary positions provide contrast.  By experiencing the pain of losing, we better understand and appreciate the joy of winning.  We understand the darkness of the color black by its contrast with the color white and vice versa.  We understand valor because of cowardice.  Participation trophies, however, rob our kids of this learning experience and rob us of the ability to help them and support them as they go through it during a time when failure is not as catastrophic as later in life.  In seeking to protect them, we put them in a more vulnerable position later in life and then, when they are adults, we leave them to face these things on their own and without the tools necessary to cope with how to turn failure into growth, and ultimately, we force them to gain the understanding that losing doesn’t make them a loser at an age when it is harder to believe.

We are now 22 days into the new year and, if you are like me, you have already failed at something or dropped the ball on something, and if it happened in the first month, arguably it’ll happen again.  My advice and encouragement to you are this.  Embrace the feelings and understand them for what they are.  Embrace the truth that you are not the sum total of your failures and that tomorrow is a chance to start again. Finally, embrace the reality that although failure happens, so does victory and recognize that to truly understand the joy of victory, you have to understand the pain of defeat.  Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and remember, the race isn’t over yet.