Coordinated Falling

Although most people would never suspect this, my brother, Chase, and I watched television together when we were younger.  Not much, we couldn’t stand the each other very long, much less the other’s choice of programming; but, nevertheless, we did see a few shows peacefully in the same living room.

One day that I remember particularly clear was when we were watching a documentary.  In the course of this program, an expert was talking about walking and he said, “You know, the amazing thing is that walking is just coordinated falling!”

I looked over to Chase on the couch and exclaimed, “That is such a neat way to look at it!”

Chase, however, grimaced and looked at me with a smirk and said, “Oh great, now you’re going to go around and start saying that!”

Turns out, he was wrong.  I never used that expression, until now, but his teasing me never let me forget this idea (haha Chase!).  As I was thinking on this memory, fondly, the other day, I thought about this idea of “learning to walk.”

See, when I think of good parents describing their children on their path to “learning to walk” I think of little tots doing something wrong over and over again and finally…. They get it right, and before you know it- they’re moving! 

This idea, this “walking is just falling” contradicts this idea of wrongness.  It is not that these little guys and gals are doing it wrong; they are learning how to do this action well.  They are practicing the right behavior!  So when little babies become toddlers, it is not that they finally understand walking… it is that they have finally understood falling. 

When we look at this, we see the same thing in our life.  The terrors or failures we face are most likely neither terrors nor failures… they are the pathways to success.  Succeeding, therefore, is not finding the one right way of doing something after trying all of the wrong ways first… succeeding is mastering what looks difficult, or wrong.  Succeeding is therefore learning how to coordinate falling, and then to do it better and better each time.