The other day my family and I were out for an evening walk. As we headed home, dark clouds started rolling in and we knew we probably wouldn’t make it back without getting wet. Sure enough, the rain started falling just as we entered our neighborhood. We all hurried down the street and into the house but when we got there I noticed that one of my sons was missing. I went back out in the rain and found him running in an erratic pattern in front of the house. His face was one of distress as he seemed to be going in circles. This is my child that typically hates getting wet.
I yelled to him, “What are you doing?!!”
“I hate getting wet!” he screamed back.
“Then why are you running around in the rain? Hurry inside!”
“I’m trying to but I have to dodge the rain drops!”
He was getting more soaked than any of the rest of us because he was trying to dodge the raindrops. As I went and put him under my arm and walked him inside, I realized that there is a good analogy in this story.
How often do you go through life “dodging the raindrops”?
How often do you get so worried about the little failures or setbacks that might happen, that you miss out on the great adventures that you could be having? We can spend all of our time running around in circles trying not to fail or we can accept that failure is going to come and move forward anyway. Any happy and successful person will tell you that the road to success is paved with failures.
But every time you fail, you learn. Every time you learn, you improve. The more you improve, the more successful you will be.
Accept the fact that bad things are going to happen. Accept the fact that everything won’t always work out the way you want it to. Accept the fact that rain will fall and no amount of effort will help you avoid it.
If you can accept that but move forward in spite of it, you will find more sunny days than you ever expected.
Kris