Muddy step

I found out that I didn't receive a scholarship to the Iowa Women's Leadership Conference. I was really bummed. It was a long shot, especially with hundreds of applications submitted (at least that's what it sounded like).  I had this amazing surge of powerful energy when I submitted it.  I felt like nothing could stop me.  That entire week I was riding high, getting things done, meetings that I had been dreading... I had on my "leadership boots", as many of you know.


As powerful as that day was, this matched it in disappointment and sadness.  After finding out, my heart sank, and my eyes filled with tears.  I know, kind of silly, it's "just a scholarship".  I'm a very prideful person.  I trip and fall and my pride is hurt 100 times more than my physical body.  I'm more aggravated at the fact that I "let myself fall" vs. the blood that is trickling down my leg.


Did I let myself fail?  Could I have done more?  Could I have used more eloquent words?  Could I have kissed ass?  Asking myself "could this, could that" is dangerous.  It's not a question that will lead to good answers, and will essentially leave you feeling even more crappy.  Instead, by asking: what could I have done better, OR how can I improve for next time, these questions lead to productive answers.


So I stepped in some mud with the news.  Mud comes off with a rinse.  The rinse of knowing that this opportunity wasn't meant for me this year.  More importantly, I came away reinforcing my knowledge that "failing" is not a bad thing, it's actually expected.  The greatest leaders in the world failed...A LOT!  You learn through failing. 
Thomas Edison:  "I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory."  "Talks with Edison" by George Parsons Lathrop in Harpers magazine, Vol. 80 (February 1890), p. 425


Can you imagine our world if Mr. Edison would have given up?  3000 fails!!  He kept going, because he knew that with every fail, he was learning what didn't work and would apply that to the next experiment.  Donald Trump, we all know that he tanked.  Did he fall off the face of the earth?  Nope, he restructured his business platform and got right back on the train.  


So what about this pride thing... 
The great feeling of joy and empowerment, as well as the feelings of disappointment and sadness, had nothing to do with my pride, but with feeling.  I am finally feeling with my heart, and more importantly, not punishing myself for feeling "bad".  My pride is a label of sorts.  


Pride- a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance,merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.  


Honestly, the definition isn't exactly something that is attractive to me.  Actually, it's a bit repulsive. 


So... it's time to acknowledge the FEEL, mud and all.