Don't be a meathead!

Growing up, I quickly came to the conclusion that men are supposed to be able to control everything. It seemed to me like we were supposed to be able to bend the very fabric of reality to our wills. If anything went wrong, it was directly because of our incompetence as men, so if we were good enough, nothing should ever go wrong on our watches. I lived like this for a very long time. Every time something went wrong, I would blame myself. For a while I got really stuck because things kept going wrong and I couldn’t figure out why. I would improve in every area of my life, but disaster kept striking. What was I doing wrong? Not much, I just was holding myself down with unrealistic expectations. 

Beating yourself up for your failures is like scoring an own-goal because the other team scored a point on you. It doesn’t do anything good for anyone except your opposition. This is not to say that failure can be reworked into some sort of good thing as much as taking a punch is a good thing for a boxer. It’s not fun, but it’s not avoidable. It’s going to happen either way. We may as well learn all we can from it when it happens so that we can do a little better next time. 

But that’s the real point I am trying to make today: your best won’t make you a god. You can work on your intelligence, your charisma, your strength or wisdom, but the amount you grow will always be finite. You will always feel like a small fish in a big pond and there will always be someone out there with something to teach you. For this reason, we should stop expecting ourselves to never fail. We need to come to terms with the fact that sometimes things won’t go our way because we are just one piece in the puzzle of life. Sometimes you won’t win the heart of that girl you noticed across the room. Sometimes your boss won’t like you and you may not be able to buy that brand-new shiny car you wanted. It’s not because you don’t have the charisma, or didn’t work hard enough to save the money. Sometimes life just happens like that. 

I believe this is a hard message to hear sometimes. I think we are often told that we have to take 100% of the responsibility in our lives, and if something isn’t going our way, we need to man up, work harder, and fix it. But we can’t always fix it. Sometimes we have to try anyway, but we often assume we are more than men. Sometimes we assume we are gods. Does this mean we shouldn’t try? Well, not exactly. My two takeaways are that we should focus on improving our odds, and evaluating how important something really is. I want to take a second and explain those a bit more. 

First, I think we should focus on the improvements we can make. If I don’t get out there and socialize a bit, I have no right complaining that I don’t have any friends. The more I get out there and work on my ability to enjoy the company of others, the more likely I am to get to the place in life that I want to be in. Before you know it, the things you thought were impossible will feel like no biggie, and you will have conquered the mountain by not conquering the mountain. The difference I am trying to emphasize is the need to humble yourself and recognize that you don’t have the ability necessary at that moment to be where you want to be. You will get there one day, but it may take a little more time to learn a few new tricks. 

But even more important than that is the ability to ask yourself if this is a goal worth pursuing. Many that know me know that I am not the world’s best chef. I live and die by the slow-cooker. Even then, sometimes things don’t turn out quite right. When I first left college, I had to cook for myself and it had to at least be edible. I perfected one dish, learned to improvise to survive the end of the month, and the rest was history. I simply decided that although I didn’t mind cooking, it wasn’t so important to me that I would need to perfect my craft and become an excellent chef. One good chili recipe is all I need and I don’t mind eating the same thing for months on end (I actually quite enjoy it. Chili has become like an anchor point that I come back to when life keeps changing.) It’s important to ask yourself: is this that important to me? Do I really need this in my life, or am I willing to accept the consequences of something I am not willing to put in the effort for? Sometimes things just need to be deprioritized so that we can focus more on what really matters. Many times we need to accept that we have flaws and that we won’t be able to win them all. I say this not as an excuse to be less of a person, but just to keep you from pushing yourself past the point of exhaustion. We are often driven to say that we have it all together when the truth is we don’t. We just need to keep humbly marching forward, growing as much as we can along the way. 

I guess the takeaway I am aiming for is this: fight hard, but don’t be defeated by failure. Become its master, before it becomes yours. Accept that setbacks are a part of life, but how you react to them is what will define you and your life’s journey. You can’t win every battle, but you can win the war. Stay strong, dear friend. Stay strong, and fight hard. 

Until next time

May Peace be your guide.