I watched an old video of a young Shawn Johnson the other day and one thing that she said has stuck to me. She said, "I was on the biggest stage in the entire world and I won a silver medal for my country and I was considered a loser, a loss, a failure." She was 16 and she was competing at the Olympics; I'm 21 and I can't even do a cartwheel that looks correct.
So often people judge the things we don't understand, if it isn't perfect or first place or a winner then it is a failure. What's worse, we let ourselves be judged by those people. How is that fair or rational? The truth is... it's not.
We constantly allow others to judge us and tell us we are failures and we believe them. Here's the truth, we all fail sometimes, it's part of being human and it's OKAY! We never fail until we fall into the belief that we have failed presented to us by others.
I have failed college math more times than I care to admit, does that make me a failure? NO. Do I get frustrated because I feel stupid sometimes that I can't pass math? Absolutely, especially because people make fun of me for not understanding it all the time. It would be so easy for me to turn to those people and say oh can you design an outfit and bring it to life, do you have a blog where you talk about your shortcomings for all the world to see, does your mind create new beautiful things from things most people would see as useless. Sure math isn't my strong suit, it never has been but what I can do far outweigh the things that I cannot. Sometimes, that is what you have to say when you are faced with the word "failure", there are other things I am blessed with so it is OKAY!
Life is about living it the best way you know how and realizing that sometimes you have to stop listening to what other negative people are telling you and listen to your truth.
YOU are anything but a failure.
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