Keep Moving Forward

Sometimes it seems like people in blogland can take on one of two personalities:

TYPE A "my life is hard and I'm using my blog to write about it.  In fact, the more I blog, the more I think I'm just picked on."

TYPE B "I don't want anyone to know I have imperfections, so I'm not going to show them. My blog is a perfect picture of happiness.  No, I don't make mistakes......not any you're going to hear about anyway."

I want to talk to you Type B people out there, because I've been one of them for the past...eh...two years or so.

What's wrong with failure?  What's wrong with your imperfections? Like if your neighbor finds out you have a weakness you somehow fall on the cool scale.  I guess it's a fine line though- let's not pretend like we never screw up, and that we're just always happily nestled in our happy little lives, but let's also not just focus on the imperfections in our lives (type A).

If you ask me, this is the way to live:

He failed!  Yeah, we all do!  That's not a problem!  You're not a failure just because you fail sometimes.  You're only a failure if you don't learn from your experience. And doesn't it just feel freeing to admit that you failed?  It means you don't have to keep covering for yourself, trying to keep up the "perfect" persona.  When you're willing to acknowledge your mistakes, you don't spend your days blaming other people for your unhappiness.  Did you notice that as important as the failure was in this clip, it's not nearly as important as the "KEEP MOVING FORWARD" part?  That's just how life should be!  Yes, you will make mistakes.  You will fail.  But you take those failures and use it to propel you forward in life.  And hey, once you realize you make mistakes sometimes, you'll know you aren't competent enough to handle life alone.  And then you'll know that you need some divine assistance and THEN you'll appreciate just how special the Atonement really is.

When this hurdle all started in my life, I remember hearing people say things like "yes, that was a tough time in my life, but I wouldn't trade it for anything." or "yes, I definitely made some mistakes.  But if I were to do it over, I wouldn't change a thing." And I would go "uh, are you all crazy?! I would so go back and erase these mistakes.  I would so change my decisions, pretend none of this ever happened!" But that's the thing about mistakes and the perfect way this life is set up: you don't need to go back and erase your mistakes.  You don't need to brush them under the rug.  When you acknowledge that you have failed (and remember, that doesn't mean you're a failure) you're enabled! You have experience in your pocket that you can use to get it right next time!  And you just....well, keep moving forward.