The F Word

The Stuttering Kitten

A teacher is explaining biology to her 4th grade students. "Human Beings are the only animals that stutter",  she says.

A little girl raises her hand. "I had a kitty-cat who stuttered", she volunteered.

The teacher, knowing how precious some of these stories could become, asked the girl to describe the incident.

"Well", she began, "I was in the back yard with my kitty and the  Rottweiler who lives next door got a running start and before we knew it,  he jumped over the fence into our yard!

"That must've been scary",  said the teacher.

"It sure was",  said the little girl. 

"My kitty went 'Fffff, Fffff, Fffff'... and before he could say "Fuck," the Rottweiler ate him!"

 

The letter F possesses negative vibes.  Take February, for example.  February has NOT been a good month for me.  Once again this year, I've fought moodiness and depression, no doubt brought on by the season and a list of age-related hormonal imbalances and FALLOUT.  To offset the gloom and doom, I have made bad FOOD choices, which have ended up being only temporary "facelift" to my depression, resulting in FAILED weight loss attempts, as well as compromising my hard-earned level of FITNESS.  All resulting in an ongoing vicious circle. 

February.  A month of failures.  Or, another way of saying it:  A month of fuck-ups.

The F word.

But I've been at this long enough to know that FAILURE is not FINAL unless you allow it to be.  In fact, failure can be constructive to long-term success if construed in a more productive perspective.
To concede to failure is a surrender.  A forfeit to fear.  It's quitting. 

And I am not a good quitter.  I may fail.  And I may fail a lot.  But I don't -- and won't -- quit.

I log on most days to ThinkExist to see whose birthdays they honor on their website.  February 26 happens to be Johnny Cash's birthday.  My middle son always liked Johnny Cash.  Not being a country fan by ANY stretch of the imagination, I can't say I share in that enthusiasm.  But I do respect the man for all that he accomplished in his lifetime, for many of the things he wrote and sang about, stood for, embraced. 

Reading his quote on "failure" today while visiting the ThinkExist website, it reminded me how important it is to make the most out of my failures these past weeks. 

Will I allow those failures continue to rob me of precious emotional and physical energy that I need to will myself back onto the right track of success?  If I think on "yesterday" long enough, that's exactly what I'm setting myself up for.  More failure. 

Let it go, T.  Fuck it.  Let it go.  You can't unring a bell.  What matters is today.  And the only way to make today more successful than yesterday is to pour every ounce of positive energy into turning this around.  Emotionally, physically, mentally.  My failures of yesterday are my opportunities to begin again today.

F may have stood for failure yesterday.  Today it stands for
flame
fire 
focus

Happy Birthday, Johnny Cash. 
And thank you for your words of wisdom which will live on and on in the lives of others.