Being a Detroit Lions fan isn’t easy. Sunday after Sunday ends with the same three words.
“Same old Lions”
For those of you who don’t know, my Detroit lions haven’t won a championship since 1957. And this year, they were closer than they’ve been in their entire history. They went 15-2, and finished the season as the number one seed in the NFL.
So when they got creamed by an underdog team in the first round of the playoffs, it was all the more devastating.
What do you do when you’re faced with failure?
Failure hurts, all the more so when you’re expected to succeed. It can crush your ego, knock the wind out of your sails, and take away all motivation to keep moving forward.
Many times, when I fail - I find myself saying things like,
“Maybe this wasn’t meant to be”, or “I guess I’m just not cut out for this”, or “What’s the point in continuing to try” When I fail, I feel overwhelmingly normal. And in a world where everyone seems to be extraordinary, normalcy hurts.
But when you’re facedown in the dirt, you have to answer a painful question.
“What now?”
Are you really going to let yourself get rolled over? Are you really going to accept defeat? Or are you going to rise strong and make something of this?
Rav Soloveitchik points out that the hebrew word for “why”, (Lama), has the same source as the word (L’ma) “for what”. He explains that this is because we are never supposed to get caught asking why.
Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?
Instead, we need to ask for what did this happen?
What can I learn from this?
What can I do better?
What would need to happen to make this failure a success?
These type of questions are extremely important. They shift focus immediately from the past to the present, and what we can do now that will change and improve our future.
And while yes, it’s ok to take a second to mourn what wasn’t, a determined and resilient persons mindset is always be thinking “what will be”.
So if you’ve faced a failure recently. Don’t let it get to your head. You’re not a failure. You’re just a work in progress. Just by getting up and staring the lessons you need to take away in the eye, you are already succeeding.