With the Olympics in full swing and upsets and failures inevitably happening to even the best, I heard the question asked: What would you say to Jordyn Wieber (the reigning world gymnastics champion who was favored to be in the running for the all-around final) failing to advance after a few missteps?
I thought of all the "fluffy" things one could say to encourage, empathize, or put it all into perspective and nothing I could come up with cut the mustard. Only the honest, hard truth that: This sucks. Any other day, it could have been you. But to sum it all up in 3 words: Life goes on. The sting of this loss is going to hurt a day, a month, a year, 10 years, and even 20 years down the road. The "what-ifs" and "what could've gone differentlies" can haunt you forever. But you gotta let life go on. With time and by finding joy in other life experiences the pain will ease. Finish your best and let it be what it is. You don't have a choice. There may always be tears with this memory, but the pain and disappointment will fade as life goes on and the other joys it brings begin to trump this failure. If all we base our life's joy and our self-worth on is our talent, looks, strength, humor, or brains life will be nothing but disappointment after disappointment as our failures and weaknesses in these areas are brought to light. Finding joy and self worth in things outside of ourselves is what helps us move on when we fail ourselves. So dear Jordyn, life goes on and you are worth more than even the Olympic gold!
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