Scrabbled Message

When I was in school, the teacher would make the class write sentences as a punishment. Maybe you remember writing one hundred times:

I will not talk in class when the teacher leaves the room.
I will not talk in class when the teacher leaves the room.
I will not talk in class when the teacher leaves the room.
I will not talk in class when the teacher leaves the room.

I was one of those children that enjoyed writing sentences. Not only was writing enjoyable, but my competitive streak loved trying to be the first to finish writing all the sentences. Go ahead and groan. I know that is totally geeky. However…

When I try to convince myself of something, I repeat the message or thought over and over again in my head. It is almost like writing sentences. During my self-talking moments, the pervasive message seems to always go back to the same three words.

Never give up.
Never give up.
Never give up.
Never give up.

My mother is probably the one to blame for this mantra occupying my mind. You see, she brainwashed me as I was growing up by always telling me that no matter how bad the situation seems at that moment, I should…

Never give up.

Did I believe her? No way, but then she didn’t just tell me, she lived it. That made it rather hard to argue with Mom since she practiced what she preached. So when I didn’t win the spelling bee in elementary school, Mom said…

“Never give up.”

When I sewed the sleeve onto the blouse inside out and had to pick out all the stitches, Mom said…

“Never give up.”

When I didn’t get the job I wanted when I was young and innocent, Mom said…

“Never give up.”

That’s the way it has been all my life. During every crisis or disappointment or hard time, Mom reminded me to…

“Never give up.”

So today when everything seemed to go wrong, I first thought, “Why me?” and then I heard my mother echo in my head…

“Never give up.”

As if that wasn’t enough, I called Mom at the end of the day, told her my woes and she said…

“This is life! You just keep trying and never give up.”

Maybe that is the message I was supposed to lean on today. Life isn’t going to go smoothly all the time. People aren’t going to be nice all the time. Bad things happen to everyone. The key is to learn to handle the situation with courage and grace.

My Dad died courageously.

My mother lives courageously.

I think of those two facts often. Since I am their daughter, I have their courageous genes in me somewhere! So during my self-talk today, I kept believing that I would be fine by the end of the day or week or year or lifetime. I just have to keep remembering and putting into practice the scrabbled message that has run throughout my life…

 

“Magic is believing in yourself,
if you can do that,
you can make anything happen.”
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe~