I follow a Facebook Page called Beautiful Minds and it shares inspiring quotes and poeticly thoughtful phrases. A moment ago, this was staring back at me from my feed. It came right on the heels of my telling my spouse that I need to work harder at some things and discussing with my aunt the fact that I can't even get my knees off the ground for a push-up let alone a plank. (It's something I have never been able to do. My Phys. Ed. teachers used to get pretty hostile about it.)
Maybe I'll never be able to do a plank. Maybe I am just not physically capable of getting my knees off the ground with my toes, for whatever reason, but that doesn't mean I should do nothing just because I can't do that. It doesn't mean I shouldn't do the best I can. I "try" to do things all the time, while at the same time preaching the line from Star Wars like its some gospel. "Do or Do Not. There is no Try." I say that all the time, but what does it mean? Do I live it? More often than not, I just lose steam, which causes me to come down on myself, which causes me to stall. That's not doing. That's also not allowing myself to fail and for that to be ok. It has to be ok to fail because we are never going to succeed at everything we try 100% of the time. Doing, though, is not the same as succeeding, and that's so important to remember and all too easy to forget. Maybe I will never be able to push my knees up from the floor with my toes, but there are lots of other ways to work out my upper and lower body. Just because I can't do that one thing doesn't mean I should let it stop me from doing all the other things that I can do.
I give up too easily when I start to slip. I get discouraged if I spend a day not checking anything off my list when for the past week I've been checking things off left and right. I let that one day throw me off for the next week. This is not ok. This is a vicious cycle that needs to be examined and put away. Falling off the cart doesn't have to mean struggling to try and catch it to climb back on. The truth is that when you stop, the cart stops, too. The cart is right there beside you waiting for you to climb back onto it again. It's not running away without you. It will start to roll away, the longer you lie on the ground, but it will only get ahead of you if you let it.
We are not always able to do what we want. There are myriad reasons why that might be the case. Mental and Physical Health don't always allow us to be as productive as we want every day. Life gets in the way of living sometimes. That's ok. As long as we're doing our best and not letting the cart get too far ahead of us, we're still moving forward. If I can't check off anything today I can't let that stop me from checking anything off tomorrow. If I'm not able, for whaterver reason, that's ok, too. When I can, though, that's a different story. I can't and I won't are two entirely different things. If I let I won't rule me the way I can't has to be allowed to sometimes, then nothing will ever be done. If I can, then I will. That needs to me what I tell myself, instead of focusing on my shortcomings and letting ME drag me down.
Ganbarimasu!
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