I DON’T KNOW if you are like me, but I really hate messing up. I love to know that I am being obedient to The Lord and walking uprightly, in His will and making wise decisions in everything I do. Life has taught me that consistency and maturity in the above comes as a result of practice and experience.
Good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement. If we are afraid of failing or messing up, we would never do anything. Case in point: if we were afraid of falling, we would have never attempted to walk.
When we first started walking, we fell many times and our knees and elbows bear the evidence via the many bruises and scars left on them. Interestingly, because of those many falls and getting up and going at it again and learning from those failures, today we walk effortlessly.
It’s really remarkable that the things which carry the evidence of our failures and falls (our knees and elbows), are the same things that allow us to physically get back up. Without them this would be almost impossible to do. Also, it is quite amazing that every single person has bruises on their elbows and knees, which tell me that we are all imperfect, have messed up and don’t always get it right.
I wonder if God knew falling and failing would be necessary for our growth and development and, as a result, gave us the tools and mechanisms to get up and go again?
Could it be that God knew we would all struggle with arrogance and jealousy so He designed us in a way that our imperfections and bruises would be evident for all to see, which should keep us humble and more compassionate to each other? Hmmm. God is a master creator and designer.
Great rewards for runners
Running is more impressive and exciting than walking and there are greater rewards globally for those who run than those who walk. Think about it; check the income gained by sprinters and runners in comparison to race walkers. Also check the crowd response and size between the two. Running is also a gross motor developmental milestone in children that all parents look for.
Despite all the above, you basically have to learn to walk before you can run. If you never learnt how to get up when you fell down from walking, what knowledge could you rely on to help you get up when you fall down from running? This reveals how important it is to be grateful and appreciative of small beginnings.
I am sure that you seldom fall or trip now as compared to when you were a child. The reason for that is, over time, you learnt how to recognise and avoid what caused you to fall or trip in the first place.
Basically, experience made you wiser and you were able to make better judgments. As you mature and age, the consequences of falling are more severe. As a child or even a teen, the worst that would happen is you got a few cuts and scratches and maybe a hairline fracture. A middle-aged adult or a senior could break bones, become disabled or even have brain injury from a fall and many times full recovery doesn’t occur. As a result, the older you become, you often try to avoid falling and take less risks that would increase the chances of falling.
If the above is indeed true, why don’t we take the same approach with our lives and the decisions we make? I expect a child to behave like a child but adults should act as such. The same way we recognised what made us fall when we walked and learnt how to avoid them, we must apply the same principle to what causes us to mess up in our lives, relationships and careers and seek to avoid them.
As you age and mature as a person, the consequences of physically falling are more severe; the same is true as you mature in life, relationships and career. Being unfaithful years into marriage carries greater consequences than if it occurred during courtship. Embezzling funds as a senior employee carries greater consequences than if it occurred as a junior employee. Cheating on a test at university carries greater consequences than if it occurred at secondary school.
Our falls and failures help us in our development but it is important to learn from them and move on.
• Corey Worrell, a former Commonwealth youth ambassador, is director of C2J Foundation Inc., a project-based NGO focusing on social development. Email [email protected]
