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What Your Falls Tell About You

As we know, failure is not the result, it is an attitude. We are conditioned, however, to take every deviation from the result we wanted with all our hearts and minds as a failure. It may take years before we recognise that this ‘failure’ was a blessing in disguise.

Speaking of falling, I think the way we fall is an indication of how we may take a non-physical flop. I’ve seen all sorts of falls. Some people make it a drama. Even when the fall isn’t bad at all, they still act as if it was the worst fall in their entire life. If they happen to drop flat on the ground, they’ll stay lying there for some time. Then they slowly get up. Then they start walking, constantly turning back to see the place where they’d fallen. Two hours later, when they are fine, they will start contemplating whatever this fall had meant for their pride and integrity.

Others hide their eyes, as if they committed one of the cardinal sins. It is amazing how deeply ashamed we are of what should be an absolutely normal thing.

As for me, I used to be a clumsy kid, falling at nearly every opportunity. During my childhood summers my knees were covered in bruises from those falls. I don’t think my parents condoned my falling so often, and they definitely never let me stay on the ground for too long – for fear of me catching cold more than any other reasons. One thing I do remember though: I’ve never taken those falls seriously. The first thing I’d do on most occasions – I’d start laughing. And then I’d carry on walking as if there was no fall.

I’ve seen many people falling, and I think our unconscious attitudes to our own physical clumsiness reflects our attitudes to mistakes we make in life, to how we fall in figurative sense. Those of us who are prone to drama will take every fall as a dagger going deeply and slowly in their heart. Those who become angry at their own fall are likely to blame Nature, circumstances, and other people for their clumsiness. Those who get up and keep on walking take falls as they should be taken – as an attitude, rathen than a result. I don’t fail; I only do what others have done at least once.

As for laughing… Let’s be honest – in real life people rarely execute a perfect fall. We do look funny when we land on our behinds or bellies. Don’t get me wrong: if the fall caused a dangerous injury, there is little to be happy about. But even so… why take it so seriously as if some unknown force, Fate, as it were, pushed you down? If it is human to err, surely it is human to fall.

The image is courtesy of ClipartGuide.com.

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