Day Seven: So What Should We Do When We Fail?

If I could subtitle these blogs this one would be “Day Seven: So What Should We Do When We Fail? Or “Fuck… I Overslept… Now What?” Number one rule of Challenge Club, talk about Challenge Club. So I had this awful, chaotic, nightmare filled (more like phantasm filled…) night with dreams that had everything from a scuba diving girl who was filming a documentary on dolphins, a woman who was in Bladerunner:2049 who was angry about not meeting Jared Leto because he was an asshole to running in the dark being chased by an ominous tall man who I could hear crashing through the underbrush softly laughing and I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t getting winded because I was dying. I sat in a bar and the bartender kept screamed and mocked me telling all the patrons that “this guy doesn’t drink no more!!!” I wanted to tell him that it was “any more” because “doesn’t drink no more” is a double negative and it means I still drink… Which, by the way, I wanted a drink so bad I could smell the vodka behind the bar... So I thrashed until 4:15 AM until I fell asleep exhausted and I don’t remember turning off my alarm at 5:21 but I sure did. So I woke up and the light was entirely wrong in my room and I saw 9:43 mocking me on the face on my phone… I overslept by 4 hours and 13 minutes so I am a little behind today. I think I may have crossed over into alcoholism a bit more than I wanted to admit. This detoxification bullshit is not for the weak… Secretly, just so everyone is aware, I wanted to say that “Detoxification isn’t for pussies…” but this is 2021 and you can’t say that anymore because apparently that’s sexist however when people are being difficult, it is still allowable to call that person a “dick” and nobody says anything. That’s probably a double standard because it’s really easy to offend people nowadays, especially is they’re a pussy… There, now I gave you something to think about today if you have time for any deep thoughts on the matter.

So I did a spectacular failure. Challenging yourself to get up at 5:30 in the morning, and oversleeping four and a half hours is a spectacular failure… I know, I know, I didn’t get drunk or do bongs and run naked through a park during family hour. Seriously though, in the realm of self-improvement, what if we took every aspect of it seriously? If I take on three challenges, why not consider all the challenges equal? Say I want to stop overeating, go to bed earlier and start exercising all at once. So at the end of the day, I exercised, and I am slipping into bed at the right time but I overate all three meals. Am I allowed to say , “Well, at least I got two out of three today” and fall asleep happily thinking “good enough…” I call bullshit on that one. I have eleven aspect on this Change my Life Challenge and I damn well mean to hit every facet of it, every day or I feel like I failed. It’s that simple.

“Oh, Bob, don’t be so harsh! People need room to wiggle…” I say no… How about fuck no in fact… Wiggling is for worms and children on church pews. Wiggling is fine when you are playing around. When you challenge yourself, that’s a serious thing isn’t it? If it isn’t then it isn’t a challenge, it’s just a half-hearted attempt not to be taken seriously.

Time for a cut-a-way Family Guy style here…

Yesterday I spoke of my grandfather teaching me his approach to life. This guy was born in 1918 or so and lived through everything… Pandemic, World War I, The Great Depression, World War II, etc… There was no “try” with him. I believe he taught Yoda the axiom “Do or not do, there is no try” when Yoda was a pup… I have this vivid memory of him standing over me and I was crying about some childish nonsense and he was telling me to complete something and I sniveled “I’m trying!” and he stood me up and took a quarter out of his pocket. He showed it to me and dropped it on the ground between us. I looked at the quarter (which in 1969-70 was a fucking chest full of gold doubloons to a five year old… Do you know how much purchase power a quarter had at the penny candy section?) and I looked up at him towering over me. He said, “try to pick that up, it’s yours…” I remember being incredulous and I bent down and he stopped me. I bent again and he stopped me. He kept saying “try...” After three or four attempts he picked the quarter up and put it in his pocket. He looked me in the eye and he told a five year old “you don’t “try” to do things, you do them or you don’t do them. Many of you right now are saying “oh my god, what a dick!” and I will tell you two things, stop being sexist and secondly, take this lesson for what it was. Making a half-hearted attempt at something you want just means you didn’t really want it all that bad anyway. Later that day, he walked by and dropped that quarter again and I snatched that motherfucker up like a mongoose on a cobra… I learned in that moment that wanting has different levels. You want enough to succeed or you want enough to “try”… Both have equal starting value, but one is a sure thing… You guess which one is which. Now my philosophy isn’t for everyone and I understand that fully. I don’t judge people who are weak; they simply do not understand the possibilities of their power. For those of you who still think I’m being a dick, just for final clarification, take this analogy. You can “try” to fix the car because you may not be a mechanic and “trying” is all you have but… “Trying” to not eat that donut is bullshit… If you tell me that you’re “trying to avoid” sugar, pay attention, you might see that smirk swim under my face. It will ripple the surface like a fish swimming by the boat… You don’t actually see the fish, but you see the result…

Back from the cut-a-way…

So now what? Today I failed by oversleeping four and a half hours. Admittedly, I feel rested up and that’s the positive side of this. On the negative, I am far behind but luckily, it is Sunday so it is my exercise rest day and I don’t have anything on that side of the calendar except for light stretching so it balances out but I still have that lingering feeling of dismal failure so how should I approach that? Remember yesterday when I talked about reading all those self-help books? Now is when they come in handy. The quotes, tidbits of motivational speeches and stories of those who succeeded in the past as they struggled and learned how to fail and still keep going come in handy at times like these…

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” -Henry Ford

Isn’t that beautiful? 

As my drill instructor in basic training used to say “Do it again!”  

Except he didn’t “say” it so much as he got in your face and touched you nose to nose and screamed manically into your mouth “DO IT AGAIN!!!!!”  You know, now that I think about it, Marine Corps drill instructors have lots in common with mid-20th century grandfathers, just the tone is different… 

Now pay attention, this is the important part of today's blog... The "super serious" part... 

When we start looking at our obstacles as openings, we set ourselves up for evolution of our character. Instead of letting failure win, we can look back at the choices we made and find new ways to redirect for new choices and a successful outcome. When we cultivate that ability we are able to move forward with new information knowing that we have the power to change the trajectory of our future. This gives us the opportunity to make new choices, and nurture a holistic understanding of how those choices affect our lives. Then we can take this idea and move forward from that failure and we are given the new opportunity to take control of the choices that we make. This puts us in control of our own outcomes and we build resilience. Thank you Henry Ford and Lewis Watson…

The definition of resilience is “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Failure, pain, obstacles and suffering develop our resilience. Resilience is not a skill that is learned over night, it is something that must be practiced, nurtured and built upon. I personally think you discover how tough you are. Resilience is a realization when you search for it. You can take those punches to your face that life INEVITABLTY hands you. You know the unexpected deaths, car accidents, sickness, etc… You can lie there and cry for a while, no harm, no foul, but eventually you gotta get up and you gotta dust yourself off and get on with it.  Some need therapy, some need another person to lean on for a while and we all need to be heard by someone, but we are resilient and we can rise up again, maybe not who we were before, but different, stronger and better because now we are warriors who can help others around us who suffer the same fate that we did. Resilience isn’t just withstanding the storm, but it is developing compassion and empathizing with those who are weathering the storm after us and helping them when they cry out for assistance. That’s beautiful isn’t it? We suffer so we can develop resilience and support those who befall the same fate.

Well, I’m late as fuck… Today was a lesson learned and tomorrow when the 5:30 alarm sounds, my ass will be out of the bed and my feet on the floor. If success tastes sweet, then this morning was a drink from Fear Factor…  Maybe the bullfrogs in a blender with some swamp water or a nice "blended rat" smoothie perhaps...

See you tomorrow!

 

Love ya! Mean it!