Happy first Monday of 2011!
This past Friday, about 9 hours before the clock struck midnight and we all turned into 2011 pumpkins, I was writing a letter.
It wasn’t a letter that I was going to put into the post box and mail. It wasn’t a letter to my friend, thanking her for the lovely bouquet she sent me for Christmas. It wasn’t a love letter.
It was a letter to me.
Specifically, it was a letter to myself one year ago. A letter to my less wise, more anxious, frequently concerned with the future, December-thirty-first-two-thousand-nine self.
I chose to write it as a monthly review of all the challenging and delightful things that happened to me in 2010. In the past year, I got my heart broken. I traveled to six different foreign countries. I said hello to some life-changing challenges and mental blocks. I said goodbye to some amazingly inspiring friends and travel companions. I quit my job. I got offered my job back. I fell. Hard. And then I got back up.
It was a letter full of reassurance and love and compassion. It was a letter stacked with gushy praise and “ohmigod I can’t believe you did that” reminders. It was a letter that was a little emotional to write and I was even a bit afraid to post it in a place that everyone else would see it. But, after finishing the letter I realized one astonishingly important thing.
I didn’t dissolve in the wake of my failures. And maaaan, there were a lot of them.
During the early part of World War II, the British government coined the phrase “Keep calm and carry on“ for mass production as part of their propaganda campaign. They wanted to prepare the masses for the inevitable hardships that the war in Europe was going to bring to their little island. In the ultimate show of the British “stiff upper lip” syndrome, the government inspired the people of England not to crumble at the first sign of war, but to continue through life despite the awful things that were likely to come. Though the phrase was lost for almost seventy years, it has recently become popular in the past 10 years, having been reprinted as posters and bumper stickers and spread all throughout the internet.
Why is that one phrase so important to us today? Because in the age of immediate information and get-rich-quick schemes and 14-year-old techie wunderkinds, we sometimes need a little reminder that failure and hardship is inevitable, and almost necessary to help us grow. Instead of melting down at each setback, perhaps mindful recognition of what want wrong and renewed focus in our goals are instead what we should be embracing.
And so, after going back and reading my letter, I realized that the most prominent theme was that, when the going got tough, I got back on my proverbial purple-spotted pinto and kept going. I did not freak out, have a life meltdown, cry for hours and days over the metaphorical milk that I had spilled all over my life.
I kept calm. And I carried on.
And I was pretty dang proud of myself for it.
Okay, your turn. I want you to try something this morning. I want you to remember a time recently or not-so-recently when you thought that your life was literally ending. When you didn’t gotten that promotion that you absolutely deserved. When your application got rejected by the admissions committee that you thought you had charmed the pants off of. When you got your heart and soul crushed and stopped breathing for what felt like years.
Now remember what you did right after. Did you cry? Scream? Throw dishes and plates at the wall? Say things to people that you maybe aren’t so terribly proud of? All of the above?
Think about who you are right now. Think about what has become of your life since that crushing defeat. Even if the sting of disappointment hasn’t gone away, I bet there are a few things in your life now that are better than they were before the above-referenced Failure. An even better job opportunity at a startup, a university that is smaller and more focused on your major, an appreciation for the freedom of the single life?
Sometimes, when we are going through a period of the breaks, it’s easy to get down on ourselves. To think that we deserve more than the universe is giving back to us. To feel so defeated that no one recognizes our brilliance and well, if no one appreciates it, then I’m not doing it anymore. But if there is anything that I learned from writing my letter to myself, it’s that I am more proud of the time that I sighed at failure, but kept on going. More proud when I picked up and dusted off than when I crumpled and gave in.
So this week, I’m going to keep calm and carry on. I’m going to recognize failure, take it in, notice how it feels, and then let it go and keep going. I’m not going to yell and cry and get hysterical. I will keep calm, breathe deep, exhale loudly, and try again. Because the only way to get after my dreams is to keep trying. Keeping calm, and carrying on.
How do you guys cope with setbacks and failures? Will you keep calm and carry on in 2011? Has anyone else written a letter to your past or future self? What did it say?
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