The way I see it, we are born at cross roads, and our lives will inevitably veer one direction or the other.
One direction is light and the other is dark.
We aren’t born on a certain path. It’s not a direction that is determined with a single decision or action. It’s based on precedent, on history, on habit.
If we take the path towards darkness, there are many strong winds blowing us on our way. They are varied and personalized towards each of us. They can be depression or anxiety or worry or bitterness or anger or rage or disappointment or cynicism or complacency. We don’t have to consciously choose this path. Our wind will provide all the direction we need.
If we take the path towards light, we will still have those winds that will try to blow us to the dark side, but those who are able to walk in the light, do so with a dogged determination to stay on path. They will falter and fail and take wrong turns, but they will always come back.
I was thinking about this early this morning.
It has been a long day and it’s only 9:30. I have been up with Mae since 3:00 this morning. She absolutely refused to lay in her bed… that is until I set her there for a moment while I got her sister’s clothes ready at 7:00, and she fell asleep in there. (Of course.)
And then I opened my email and while the email was written in a very respectful and kind manner, it was still reprimanding me for an action I actually took. And it was such a ridiculously trivial matter that it shouldn’t have bothered me in the least (especially because I held no real guilt,) but all I could hear in my head was “failure!”
It’s like those sirens in the Jim Carey Grinch movie when red alarms go off and everything is blinking red and blaring.
And from there it is was downhill.
I failed because I forgot to make Magoo her lunch last night.
Then I failed because I was so nauseous this morning and I couldn’t manage to bring myself to put lettuce on her cream cheese, chicken, and whole wheat roll up.
Then because of a change in schedule, Magoo had to be dropped off at school forty minutes before Goosie did. So I just put a DVD on in the car for Goosie. Failure, I thought. I should have read them books or did the grocery shopping or taught them “Kumbaya.”
And it’s not until I write it out that I realize that these accusations of failure follow me around all day, every day. Probably half a dozen times a minute. They are my friend. My constant. My companion.
As easy as it is to allow myself to wallow in them and believe them and just let them be, I know they lead to the darkness.
When I was really depressed, I couldn’t see this. I could never separate myself from the negative voices. I could have worked as hard as I wanted to and practiced as much positive thinking as I wanted to and it wouldn’t have made a difference.
Sometimes we need help getting out. Sometimes we absolutely cannot do it on our own. We need skill to overcome the dark, and we simply don’t all have them. And some of us need a lot of advanced skills because our wind is particularly strong.
And I got that help. I can now see this negativity isn’t for me. But still I falter.
But the ridiculously, insanely, wonderful thing about the hope that springs out of the darkness is that it knows no bounds because it has no bounds.
When we are able to break our shackles — to food or drugs or alcohol or regret or failure or depression or shame or bitterness or abuse or rage — we have no reason not to be hopeful. We have proven we can overcome. We need not fear relapse (although we all probably always will) because we know we came through it and we can do so again.
But that doesn’t make it easy. At all. In fact, they can be the battles that define our lives. Every single day, every single one of us must wake up and make the decision to fight for the light. Finding the light and living in it isn’t the victory. It’s the fight that’s the victory. The insistence that we never allow ourselves to give up. That we always seek out what is real and positive and true.
And so for today, whenever I hear the word “failure” going through my mind, I’m going to cover my ears and sing, “la la la” just like an defiant toddler. And I’m going to tell myself not to let it in. Failure won’t define me and I won’t allow it to speak my name each day.
I will fail probably more times that I will succeed today. But that’s okay. Because it’s the journey that defines us, not the victor.