Today's Quote
...for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.
Mary Pickford
When a boxer falls to his opponent's blow, he has a choice - stay down and escape to a TKO, or get back up and face the onslaught. What makes the difference between the winning and the losing of the match is partially the decision to get back up. The other part of winning the match is the decision to do something different once he's gotten back up. Many people have tried and failed with respect to some of the issues in their lives. Many have repeated this 'try and fail' process many times over to friends or therapists. Like the losing boxer - they are bruised and bloodied by life's blows. They have learned how to get back up, but have not learned to make the necessary decisions to do something different and are therefore doomed to repeat the failure process again and again until it is so internalized within them that they literally think that they are nothing but one 'big screw-up'. I used that term because it is the term one of my former students used to describe himself in an exercise I led the boys in at devotional one Sunday evening.
I gave the students a drawing of boy holding a big blank canvas. The students were to write what they saw as their positive attributes on the paper. Things that are visible to others, like appearance and sporting or musical talents were to be written on the outside of the boy in the picture. Things that are not visible, like
honesty and courage were to be written inside the canvas the boy in the drawing was holding. Some of the students did very well. They were very confident about who they were and where they were going in their lives. Others did well with visible attributes but put a big question mark inside their boy's canvas representing that they did not yet have a grasp on who they really were. Some wrote negatives, because they were still so unsure of themselves. Some colored their picture to personalize it. Some left it black and white. As a follow up to the activity, I sent a copy of the same blank page to each of my student's parents. The parents were to do the same exercise for their students. They were to write on the picture the attributes that they saw in their children. The students received a copy of their parent's vision of them at a later meeting. It was so enlightening to see how different some of the visions of the parents and the students were and how alike others were.
The purpose of this activity was to show the students that they were more than what they currently thought thought of themselves. It was to show them that the fight is worth it. They didn't have to give up to life's TKO. They were someone important! I was quite moved by some of the student's reactions to this seemingly small activity. They took it very seriously. Many of the students gave me hugs when all was said and done. The papers the students did were the people they believe themselves to be at the time. The papers the parents did was a 'paper dream' for some of them - but dreams have a way of coming true when they are worked on within the confines of a loving family.
Above is a copy of the same picture for you to work with if you are so inclined. You should be able to right click it and then 'save picture as' on your computer and print it out form there. I hope that you will take this as seriously as my students did. Please remember - it is not the decision to get back up that separates the winners from the losers in life. It is the decision to do something different, to make better choices, to forgive, to ask for help, and to make a renewed effort towards your goals. Do not stay down. Get up and win the fight!
...for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.
Mary Pickford
When a boxer falls to his opponent's blow, he has a choice - stay down and escape to a TKO, or get back up and face the onslaught. What makes the difference between the winning and the losing of the match is partially the decision to get back up. The other part of winning the match is the decision to do something different once he's gotten back up. Many people have tried and failed with respect to some of the issues in their lives. Many have repeated this 'try and fail' process many times over to friends or therapists. Like the losing boxer - they are bruised and bloodied by life's blows. They have learned how to get back up, but have not learned to make the necessary decisions to do something different and are therefore doomed to repeat the failure process again and again until it is so internalized within them that they literally think that they are nothing but one 'big screw-up'. I used that term because it is the term one of my former students used to describe himself in an exercise I led the boys in at devotional one Sunday evening.
I gave the students a drawing of boy holding a big blank canvas. The students were to write what they saw as their positive attributes on the paper. Things that are visible to others, like appearance and sporting or musical talents were to be written on the outside of the boy in the picture. Things that are not visible, like
honesty and courage were to be written inside the canvas the boy in the drawing was holding. Some of the students did very well. They were very confident about who they were and where they were going in their lives. Others did well with visible attributes but put a big question mark inside their boy's canvas representing that they did not yet have a grasp on who they really were. Some wrote negatives, because they were still so unsure of themselves. Some colored their picture to personalize it. Some left it black and white. As a follow up to the activity, I sent a copy of the same blank page to each of my student's parents. The parents were to do the same exercise for their students. They were to write on the picture the attributes that they saw in their children. The students received a copy of their parent's vision of them at a later meeting. It was so enlightening to see how different some of the visions of the parents and the students were and how alike others were.The purpose of this activity was to show the students that they were more than what they currently thought thought of themselves. It was to show them that the fight is worth it. They didn't have to give up to life's TKO. They were someone important! I was quite moved by some of the student's reactions to this seemingly small activity. They took it very seriously. Many of the students gave me hugs when all was said and done. The papers the students did were the people they believe themselves to be at the time. The papers the parents did was a 'paper dream' for some of them - but dreams have a way of coming true when they are worked on within the confines of a loving family.
Above is a copy of the same picture for you to work with if you are so inclined. You should be able to right click it and then 'save picture as' on your computer and print it out form there. I hope that you will take this as seriously as my students did. Please remember - it is not the decision to get back up that separates the winners from the losers in life. It is the decision to do something different, to make better choices, to forgive, to ask for help, and to make a renewed effort towards your goals. Do not stay down. Get up and win the fight!
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