Module 5 Personal Reflection: Everybody stumbles

There aren’t many things more humbling than demolishing your dignity as you fall flat on your face. I remember a particular sidewalk splat that would have received high marks had it been an Olympic event. We were living in York, Nebraska, where I was teaching at a small private college. I was in Lincoln one time participating in a day-long workshop on…assertiveness. (You know the material: don’t be passive, don’t be aggressive, just be appropriately, confidently, courteously assertive. Don’t be a doormat, don’t be a bulldozer, just be a person who takes care of themselves without harming others, etc.)

At the lunch break, the participants were all leaving the crowded conference center lobby to go find nearby restaurants. As I exited the building with head held high, overflowing with abundant assertiveness, I tripped, big time. Flat down. Fast down. Face down. There was no way that this rapid descent and sudden stop went unnoticed by my fellow assertiveness trainees. I recall thinking, almost in mid-fall, as the sidewalk was approaching fast, “Oh this is just great. I am smashing into the pavement with a thud that is likely registering on the Richter scale, right in the middle of an assertiveness training workshop. What do I do now?”

Fortunately, I knew enough to know that I should get back up (as assertively as I could), brush myself off, warn others about the uneven place in the sidewalk, and simply keep moving. We are all, at any given time, one misstep away from taking an unexpected tumble. No one’s step is so secure, no one’s way so smooth, that they never get tripped up in life. I wish I had more thoughtfully embraced the important truth we warned each other about on the recess playground, when we chanted, “Ring-a-round the rosies, A pocket full of posies, Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down.” We all fall down.

So…let us gather in a circle of truth around the world and confirm our common condition. I’ll start: “I’m Dr. Lynn and sometimes I stumble.” Let us each fully accept the truth of our tendency to trip and just as fully engage those experiences and learn from them. In my life, I have stumbled more often and more painfully than that sudden sidewalk sprawl. Some of those stumbles left scars—on me and others. Sometimes the worst in us happens to the best of us. But the truth remains that it is all part of us. We stand. We fall. We stand back up again.

Let that be the learning legacy we leave behind. When you fall, remember to get back up. Just like when you were first learning to walk, when you lose your balance and you take a tumble, check yourself, make sure you’re okay, and then get back on your feet. Don’t stay down in a crumpled heap of humiliation or hurt. For the sake of yourself and others, find the strength to stand back up. And when you stand again, more aware of yourself and your surroundings, don’t forget to point to the place that tripped you up and say to those around you, “Watch your step here. This one will get you if you’re not careful. Slow down. Keep your eyes open. Steady your step. And if you need a little extra support, I will come alongside for a while and walk with you.”