It's 9AM
IF ONLY THERE WERE DOLLARS OR CENTS TO GO WITH IT!
I like a routine.
Routine is great for writing.
For running.
Or lifting.
Or any sort of training.
But routine can become a rut.
And once you’re in a rut, it’s easy to find comfort.
Which means nothing is changing.
And if you’re not changing, there is zero growth.
Or stagnation.
And that is one nation I do not want to be a part of.
I want to constantly learn.
Constantly challenge myself.
Stretch myself.
It is a difficult line to walk, to find balance between what works and stretching straight into discomfort.
Running too far.
Training to fast.
Learning just enough to be dangerous.
More to yourself than others, but the danger is real.
Because there are generations of kids who have been taught that failing is bad.
We call it participation trophies.
Everybody is a winner.
But life, the harsh taskmaster that she is, tells everybody the same thing when they get older.
There are winners.
There are losers.
There are no participation trophies.
Being harsher still, life tends to reward winners with more wins.
And losers with more L’s.
So it’s tough.
Hence, the wisdom of Plato when he said, “Suck it up, buttercup.”
I grew up a certain way.
My youth wasn’t always sweet tea and sunshine.
There were moments, sure, that seem lifted from a Norman Rockwell Southern Summer Series painting.
Which AI can create, but he never did.
Cookouts at Mamaws. Summer days working with Papaw.
Lemonade made in a green Tupperware pitcher, sweetened with Fasweet instead of sugar.
Cold off brand cola or root beer straight from an ice chest.
Home made ice cream hand cranked in a churn.
A lot of Norman normal that I chalk up in the W column.
Because I got that.
I got to do it, and live it.
I had a lot of check marks in the L column too.
And life liked seeing how much I could handle that.
So I learned something.
A secret.
Winning matters.
A lot.
But mostly in other people’s eyes.
Losing matters too.
In how others see you, treat you, act toward you.
But where it matters most, in your heart and mind, that’s 1000 percent in your control.
And if you win that struggle, then losing anything doesn’t really matter at all.
Winning games? Just another day.
Winning hearts and minds? No big deal.
Winning inside so you feel good about…
EVERYTHING
That’s the real W.
Don’t make a team? No biggie.
Wife left? It happens.
Idiot driver in front of you has no idea what merge means and stops on the Interstate? So what.
I have lost a lot in life.
I think about it for a moment, mourn it, and then do everything I can to never think about it again.
(I do think about it again, because I’m human and the struggle is real, but the W for me is I try to let it all go)
It works for some things better than others, I know.
It helps to think it’s all in a higher power’s hands.
That there’s a reason for the L and a lesson in the L.
Losing.
It also helps to learn how to reframe it, meditate on it so that you can take a not so great thing and learn from it.
Like losing a game to learn how to win next time.
Or trying a new book that nobody buys so you know that’s not something to work on anymore.
Those things are turning losses into wins.
Those types of things are learning how to fail so you can succeed.
And it applies to almost everything.
And it’s hard.
I know it is.
It takes time, effort and practice.
Practice is a way to build a routine.
Counting your blessings is a way to get out of a rut.
Now here’s the biggest secret that every Winner KNOWS and every Loser bitches about.
IT.
IS.
ALL.
A.
BLESSING.
Practice that.
Say it every day, every time something happens until it is ingrained.
We are blessed.
I am blessed.
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