You will fall

People will fall; you will too. I don't mean a physical fall to the ground, I mean you will make mistakes in life. Saying the wrong thing, developing a bad habit, befriending the wrong people; you name it, you'll be making mistakes in life. Lots of them!

I'm not an exception. But I used to handle the falls badly. Whenever I fell, I was paralyzed for weeks. A dark cloud fogged my mind; my productivity plummeted, and that put me in an even worse state. A a vicious cycle continued for weeks.

I've come to accept that I will fall. That is a normal part of life. This acceptance helped me better deal with them.

Over the years, I got better at handling the falls and found 6 constant pillars that helped me. I'm sharing them here hoping they may help people struggling with the falls as I once did:

  1. Know you are not immune to falling. We are preprogrammed with emotions that all but guarantee we will fall. Fear, desire, envy, pride, and many other emotions are powerful and unyielding forces that will defeat us sometimes.

    No one is immune to the falls. Accept them. Expect them. Prepare for them. But do not let them shake you.
  2. Get up; fast! When you fall, accept it and get up as fast as you can. Do not continue to fall once you're aware that you're falling.
  3. Do not give up. Never, ever stop trying to do better. Never surrender and never give up. Be patient; life is long. You will lose sometimes but you will win many times if you persevere.
  4. Right the wrongs. Always right anyone you've wronged, no matter how difficult. Take responsibility and fix the mistakes. This clears your conscience and makes it easier to move on. This also trains you that mistakes are painful and you are therefore less likely to do them again.
  5. Don't waste the falls. Every fall has a lesson. Search for it until you find it. Learn it. Do not let the falls go to waste by not learning from them.
  6. Move on. Do not dwell and do not wallow. After righting the wrongs and learning the lessons, get on with your life. The worst thing to do after a fall is to get stuck in a dark place. Falls are a part of life, but life is a precious gift, don't waste a single second of it doing unproductive things like staying stuck after a fall.