Self-Reflection can be
Have you ever been walking and all of the sudden, for reasons you can’t explain, the things that used to be your feet and kept you moving forward have turned into something that has made a new plan behind your back? They turn into a tangled knot of appendages, and you go face first into the ground.
There was absolutely no way you would have done that on purpose. It was like your body had a mutiny against your brain.
Possibly it was your brain that did it to your body. It got tired of it being easy and thought it would change things up a bit to see what would happen. It just didn’t go as planned and it(brain) sent the body into the ground.
I’m not a scientist or biologist or psychologist or any other gist. I’m just a young man and I am one who has fallen many times.
What makes me fall?​
I have fallen in all kinds of ways over all kinds of things. I have tripped over my own feet, tripped over rocks, over stumps, had the thing I was standing on give way, slid off things, fell under things, fell on things, rolled into things, rolled over things, fell in water, fell on dirt, fell on pavement, slid on cement, slid on leaves, slipped on mud, slipped on ice, etc, etc.
If it can happen it probably has happened. I am very lucky that I never got seriously injured in those falls: God watches over fools and drunks and I’m not really a drinker.
Was I foolish? Certainly, have been at times, probably will seem that way again. I make mistakes, I am not perfect, and I never will be.
Thankfully.
After each of those times a question sprang to my mind: What happened?
I know what happened, the real question should have been How did that happen? Or How did I not see that?
At one point I decided the only logical answer was GRAVITY.
Every single time I fell, it could be traced back to gravity.
GRAVITY - the force that attracts a body toward the center of the earth.
It made perfect sense. Gravity wanted to pull me toward the center of the Earth. It was what was making me fall.
At first, I felt flattered by it. Gravity loves me so much it keeps trying to pull me into the center of the Earth to be closer to me. It just didn’t know that I was being bruised and battered in the process. My marks were just love taps from gravity. I am so lucky to be so loved by a force of nature.
After the adrenaline wore off this idea quickly fled, and reality set in. Gravity does NOT love me. It is constantly working against me.
“Watch what I can make this guy do. He thinks he’s fine and nothing will happen. Just wait. Then WHAM!”
That’s kind of how I thought gravity was working in my life. It had a vendetta against me for some unknown reason and wasn’t going to let up. It wouldn’t even tell me what I had done.
After a while I just kind of accepted it. I said things like: "I might be able to do it, unless gravity is watching. Then I won’t” and people gave me some weird looks.
They were right to have looked at me funny. I had rationalized that gravity was truly working against me. I probably sounded like the guy who thinks lightning is out to get him.
I looked into the lightning striking people phenomenon too, to see if forces of nature really do have something against some people.
What I found was that a lot of people think the people most likely to get struck by it are the ones most afraid of getting struck by it. Which led me to another question: Where do these people get information like this?
All I could tell from what I found was that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some of them even knew they were in danger of getting struck because of WHERE they were not because of how afraid of it they were. Most people I read about said they had no idea they were about to get struck until it happened. Didn't sound like they were very afraid of it to me.
I guess it got rationalized by some people like I had rationalized gravity. People can come up with a lot of interesting ways to look at things, most are usually imaginary or ways to avoid a bruised ego.
Eventually I grew up and realized I had been wrong. I had to swallow my pride and take a look in the mirror about what made me fall. It was time for some self-reflection.
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"God watches over fools and drunks. Unfortunately, I don't really drink."
The Bruised Ego
After a tumultuous time of trying to find another reason I had fallen all those times, I only had one real answer: It was me. I had caused myself to fall.
I could blame it on a lot of other things or people but at the heart of it I had done it all by myself. Usually. There were a few instances that had actually been the work of someone else and it had been done on purpose. That’s on them not me.
I either wasn’t looking or was looking at the wrong things. I was looking up instead of where my feet were going. I have no idea what I was looking at or thinking about when I tripped on my own feet. This one really got me into a stupor.
I’ve been walking as long as I can remember: how did my own feet get in the way? I can’t blame it on anyone else. I can’t even blame gravity. How do I do this?
Why do I still bite my tongue after I have been eating my whole life too?
Why do I put something too hot for my hand in my mouth?
Why do spider webs give me the heebee jeebees? Because I know it’s on me somewhere.
Self-reflection can be Interesting to say the least.
After taking note of the things I can’t explain about myself, I was left speechless. It’s amazing I can get through life in one piece, but I do. These aren’t the things I do wrong, these are the things I have no control over. If you throw in all the times I’m just wrong it gets even worse. I’m smart enough to know better but I can’t help failing sometimes or just doing it wrong when I know how to do it right.
I learned this from fishing. When I get a big one beside the boat, I sometimes lose them because I forget to net them. I get excited and just try to sling it in and the only thing I brought in is my hook. Then I stood there wondering why I did it again. Yes, again. I also know I will do it again in the future.
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When I least expect it, I will make a mistake or fall or something else.
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I know I won't ever be perfect so why do I beat myself up over things I can’t stop. I know I’m not the only person like this either, I might be the only one admitting to most of it, but everybody messes up sometimes.
I have found that laughter works well to restore my bruised ego. If we can’t laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at? I’m not saying every mistake is funny but some of them are. All those little things I do that I can’t control or seem to completely rid myself of might, just be God’s way of saying “You have been doing well, for an imperfect creature, here’s a little reminder so you don’t get too full of yourself.” He works in mysterious ways that I usually don’t understand till well after the lesson is over. That’s one of the many things I need to improve on as well.
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"The list of things I am working on myself is a lengthy read and I haven't even got to the fine print yet."
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Getting up
At one point in my wrong way of looking at falling I decided it would be beneficial if I learned how to fall instead of learning not to. I learned how to roll, do dive rolls, back rolls, and anything else I thought would help.
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I thought I was fall proof.
Then I fell again and none of the rolls had any effect at all. It was another bad idea or wrong road. Learning to fall was not the answer. I was wrong.
I also had a really cool idea about moon gravity. If we had moon gravity, we would never fall. Just think about all the things you wouldn’t have broken because you dropped it. They would all just have floated safely down to the ground, and we could do the same thing. It would be amazing.
I know it’s not possible to do that to the whole world, but one little island would be nice. A moon gravity island resort. It seems like with all our technology we could do something like that. Then I found out science doesn’t really understand how gravity works so they can’t really make anti-gravity anything yet.
Science can't keep me from falling either. I'm back to it just being me. Great!
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Will I fall again?​
I have no doubt the day is coming when I fall flat on my face again, or out of the boat trying to land a fish that is bigger in my mind than the one my hook, or slip on ice, or some other battle for supremacy with gravity. IT WILL HAPPEN! I know it’s coming.
Is it going to change the way I do things? Nope. Is it going to make me fearful of it? NOPE! Am I going to be more cautious? I try to be. I just don’t always have my eyes fixed on what I should be looking at. The “probably won't but could happens” will happen. If I’m lucky I will have learned enough from my previous failures to know how to handle them too.
That’s what I think life is really, learning to live in spite of the things that don’t go as planned. Being the imperfect creation I am, I sometimes get it wrong and wander off the path.
Then I fall.
Then I get up and try again
I wish it was easier, but it’s not. I wish We had moon gravity, but we don’t. I wish I knew why I still bite my tongue sometimes. I guess it’s just to keep me humble.
I like surprises.
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