Today sucked. I mean, how else can I describe a day filled with mediocre good news followed by bad news complexed by more bad news only to be followed by what else but bad news? Exactly! Today sucked.
Let's backtrack for a second. I had the amazing opportunity to speak at my high school’s graduation this past year and one thing I included in my speech were these words: "You will struggle, there will be hard times, you will fail, and it will hurt. How you choose to handle that hurt, that failure will impact the next struggle." I felt like this advice was crucial to give and truly hoped that it impacted one person. Now what kind of hypocrite would I be if I didn't practice what I preach?
Fast forward back to November 15th, the day of suck. Now let me be clear, I didn't lose anyone I love, I have my health, and I'll sleep in my bed tonight without any ill will in my heart. Now that I have clarified that today really wasn't that bad let me get back to the point. I won't go into detail about the exact issues at hand, but the reality is that each of these "bad news" moments has a lesson to be learned. Some of those lessons are incredibly simple and others are so much more complex. For instance, one of today's lessons was as simple as double-checking inventory to ensure the product scheduled for install was actually received. Seems so basic right? Lesson learned and this problem can be avoided next time.
The truth is that today's issues were each an effect of my biggest struggle, balance. What does that even mean? I consistently struggle with balance in my life. My personality is easily described as "all in." It doesn't matter if it's a specific project or a hobby, I am all in. This creates an internal struggle that will impact every other important value in my life. How do you balance all the important stuff? If that answer was easy, I wouldn't have the word "balance" inked on my arm as a reminder. My struggle in this area taught me an important and valuable lesson today. So back to that part of the speech where I made the point of how you choose to handle that failure impacting the next struggle...well, today's lesson brought to myself by myself is so simple and so complex all at the same time. I have to balance my time and ensure that I am following up on all of my projects while still going "all in" to ensure that I'm impacting each additional area that is important to me while setting my work apart from anyone else's. See, super simple and insanely complex all at the same time.
I think the best part of the whole thing is that I realized today that these failures, these shortcomings are sincere and immediate reflections of my own failure. So in essence, I am teaching myself a great lesson by sponsoring an entire day of suck. For the record, my teacher, Mr. Anderson isn't my favorite.
Photo Cred: Mariel & Joey