Tag Archive | falling down

5/25/12 Today’s Advice to My Beautiful Daughters (and me) — Talk less, listen more.

May25

I am having a love/hate relationship with my blog right now.  So far, my blog has been about me sharing little nuggets, pieces of advice that I think are good life lessons for you girls.  But at the same time, I feel like this little blog is an example of me doing all the talking, and your voice isn’t being heard.

I feel a little like a phony, because I don’t’ always follow my own perfectly brilliant advice.  I feel a little sanctimonious for being inspired with such incredible insight (it IS incredible, right??), and worst of all, insecure.  When I post a blog, I watch the site stats obsessively to see how many people are “listening” to what I have to say and how many new followers I have.  The talking has become the thing, and it is making me feel unsettled, because I don’t necessarily like the me that I see through that lens. These feelings  also make me think that this blog is becoming more about me than you, and I don’t like that.

I actually started contemplating putting something completely controversial out there (politics, gay marriage) to stir things up, but I’m afraid I will be criticized, so I hold back saying some of the things that are stirring in me.  Despite my advice to you to conquer your fears, I am letting mine hold me back.  Fear is what makes me write a blog instead of the book that I have always said I wanted to write.

So even though this is me again…doing the talking, I have to tell you (again) that I don’t always get it right.  In fact, I get it wrong most of the time, and this advice comes to you from the knowledge I gained from that mistake, and from knowing there is a better way.  I’m scared to fall down.  I’m worried that I don’t lead by example.  And I’m terrified that you will look back on these years and tell people that you didn’t feel heard.

So today’s advice is for me, so that I will remember that I don’t have all the answers and I need to listen more.  I’m not perfect and that is ok.  Maybe it is even ok that I write a blog for you when I need the advice as much as you do.   I will keep writing because each post and each response plants another little seed of courage and maybe someday it will be enough for me to get serious with my dreams.  I will write because I think it will be interesting for us all to look back on this in 10 years and see how our perspectives have changed.  I will write because people seem to respond, and even though that response may make me a little too full of myself, it has also been a way to connect with people that I would never have connected with (Shout out Ellie!)  And when my ego gets too big, I can always count on you to give me a “You don’t understand.” Or even better, to tell me that you didn’t know I had a blog (sigh). That’ll teach me. 🙂

5/22/12 Today’s Advice to My Beautiful Daughters – Fall down a lot.

May22

I’m not suggesting that you become more clutzy, God knows we don’t need any help with that.

My friend, Stephanie has a little girl named Katie.  She reminds me so much of you when you are little, that I absolutely adore her.  I could just watch her all day.  When her mom asked her why she has so many bruises on her legs, she replied, “I fall down a lot.”  Hearing that story got me to thinking.

I know this little girl is FULL of life.  She runs around and dances and wrestles with her brother.  Her exuberance for life just makes me happy.  She falls down a lot.  Perhaps she is a little clutzy, but I think she falls down a lot because she is always DOING stuff.  You can’t fall down if you are sitting still.  You can’t fall down when life is passing you by.  You fall down a lot when you are LIVING.

Falling down a lot is about being willing to try and fail and get up again.  It is about going after what you want, living life to the fullest and not worrying about whether it will all work out perfectly.  Being willing to fall down a lot means you are going after things exuberantly and that you know that in order to succeed, you first have to try, and be willing to risk failure.  When failure comes, falling down a lot means that you get up again and again and again.  It is the “a lot” that makes it so cool, because it means that the first time you fell down, you tried again.

I hope that you fall down gently, but I also hope you fall down a lot.