When we fail...

We would not be human if we did not fail along the way in our journey of living.  When we do, the important thing is not to believe we ARE a failure, but learn from the experience.  For you see, our very mistakes have the potential of enabling us to rise above them by gaining what we have learned, applying it, and above all, to keep going.  Feeling ashamed or insecure only cripples us.  The "If onlys" blog I posted yesterday ties into this also.

How easy it is to become lost in the what we have done or not done negative feelings of our mistakes.  And how hard it can be at times to embrace them as learning tools too.  I know.  I have been there.  Yet it is when we choose to learn from our mistakes we have success.  You see, we build our success with the bricks of our mistakes.👍

Trust me, yours truly has indeed made mistakes and felt like folding up, yet I resolved to learn and keep galloping forth.  And I have.

After Dr. Kopits asked if I could move to Maryland due to my deteriorating spine and plummeting blood counts, as shared in my blogs, "Plunging forth," and "The journey of many miles," The Ride I did with Patches, enabled me to get to Maryland with him, quickly turning into a huge inspirational news story which is still inspiring and touching people.😃

I did not know anyone in Maryland (except doctors), who could tell me where a decent place would be to board Patches though.  This was before the Internet.  So I called feed stores and blacksmiths long distance.  One told me about this lady whose stable was in the news recently there (I should have found out why first).  I called.  Immediately she became extremely intrigued of course, by the fact I was a Little Person with a horse, but especially was very interested to hear about the media following us, and that I was a patient of the renown Dr. Kopits.  "IF ONLY" I had searched harder.  She was very friendly and persuasive, and I plunged right smack into 
my mistake.🥴

To my horror, I soon realized I was dealing with quite a 
Dr. Jekyll/Mrs. Hyde with a drinking problem.  The day after Patches and I arrived, I witnessed the rage of this lady.  A young boarder had just given her a month's notice she was moving her horse to a farm closer to where she lived.  There was nothing wrong in that in the least, but this woman went into a fury.  Reamed the poor teenager out in front of everyone, reducing her to tears.  For days the woman raged about this.  Then I began hearing from other boarders the other stuff; witnessing more.😱

Soon it was my turn.  She became crazily jealous of the media and public focus on Patches and I, going into a rage about all the attention we were getting and not her.  That it wasn't fair!  But it didn't stop there.  Having been an incense lover for many years, which also helped with having a litterbox, I burned incense in my home.  Before I knew it, everyone I knew began getting phone calls from this lady telling them I was smoking pot like there was no tomorrow.  I have never even smoked cigarettes!😮

That was it.  I had to get Patches and me out of there, fast.  Above all, Patches.  Immediately a beautiful farm, much like the one I had used for years, came to my rescue and quickly helped me get Patches moved safely.  Then I learned how much this woman had been in the local news, but not in positive ways.

My point to this story is I briefly plunged into a feeling of failure for my mistake.  Even after Patches and I had left her stable, she was still incessantly calling everyone who knew me in a jealous rage telling the most crazy, outrageous lies.  At first it was easy to beat myself up for having not checked her out more thoroughly before moving my horse to her farm.🤕

However, my dear older mentor friends who were like my parents had taught me well when I was younger though, by sharing with me this very topic today.  You see, they had already figured all this out and imparted their wisdom upon me.  They enabled me to grasp the importance of learning from our mistakes, making amends if necessary, and not becoming stuck in having failed, but to keep going with our heads held high...because...WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES, my dear ones!  It is what we do AFTER we make them that matters!  Think of them as stepping stones.😃

There was a native Kentuckian who failed time and again before he succeeded.  He learned from his failures figuring out why he kept plunging backwards instead of forwards.  Didn't give up.  Tried other ways.  Some of those failed.  He kept going anyway.  Eventually, Abraham Lincoln became President of The United States.🙂

Follow your stepping stones by not giving up, my dear ones, and you will get there.😃