A.F.E. Smith
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Learning to fall

21/4/2013

5 Comments

 
I'm up to my eyeballs in various kinds of busyness at the moment, so let's keep this short.

Last month, Baby Smith had his first fall. I'd sat him on my bed to get ready for his nap and had just turned away to draw the curtains when I heard the most spine-chilling sound imaginable: the thud of a small body hitting the carpet. I spun back round and there he was. Face-down on the floor. He'd obviously tried to crawl to the edge of the bed and peer over, with inevitable and disastrous results.

My immediate response was, naturally, ohmygodohmygodohmygodhe'sdeadhe'sdeadhe'sdead. But once I'd finished panicking, berating myself as the worst parent in existence, checking him all over in search of the tiniest scratch, comforting the tears I'd called up with my alarm, and berating myself some more — once I'd ascertained that he hadn't damaged so much as a hair follicle — I started thinking about why he was OK. (This was about a week later, when I'd stopped having flashbacks and was able to remember the incident calmly instead of bouncing off a flashing neon wall of terror in my brain marked The Time I Nearly Killed My Child.) And it occurred to me that babies can fall without getting hurt because they're not frightened. They don't tense up. They don't go into it expecting pain. They just fall.

Over time, children learn what to expect from a fall, and they know it isn't very nice. So they begin to try and prevent it from happening, by flinging out a hand to catch themselves or by avoiding accident-prone situations. In short, they learn fear. And of course when they do fall, it hurts more — because they're expecting it, because they try and save themselves from it, because knowing the risks of what you're doing always makes you more tentative and therefore less wholehearted.

The thing is, life is all about falling. Unless you're that one in a billion who will never ever experience setback or rejection or failure, life is really just a series of falls. Unfortunately, most of us get worse and worse at falling as we get older. We stop taking risks. We take our failures to heart. Each one of those falls makes it that little bit harder to get up again.

Of course we shouldn't be reckless. I'm not advocating that you jump without even checking to see how high the drop is. But if you're aiming for something you really want, you could do a lot worse than fall like a baby would: without any expectation of pain. And when the pain does hit you? Let it happen. Learn from it. But never let it make you afraid to try again.
5 Comments
Sophie E Tallis link
21/4/2013 09:40:24 am

Very wise words. We can only grow from our mistakes and as cliched as it sounds, the trials and tribulations we go through add layers to the patina of life. How bland as people would we be if we'd never experienced falls, even the odd disaster? But you are so right, as you grow older it does make you fearful to step off that bridge again...once burnt twice shy. So, you've just got to pick yourself up, brush yourself off and try not be afriad to fail. Great post! :D

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M T McGuire link
21/4/2013 03:07:35 pm

That's a cracking post.

From the point of view of someone who used to spend every available moment of their time riding horses, or roller skates, I can confirm that falling is an art and when you learn how, you are able to catapult arse over tit in a way that can look very serious but hurt far less. (OK except on one very significant occasion which left me with a limp for life but we'll gloss over that, phnark).

For what it's worth, I think sometimes with the life falls, you can do the same thing. Because while, yes, the thought of it gets harder, the actual event doesn't. So for me, if I see something looming, I'm in trouble, big trouble, right up to the moment it starts. Then the crisis management kicks in and after that I'm able to cope far more easily, because I'm doing something, and doing something makes it easier for me to kid myself that I'm in control!

Not sure if that makes any sense...

Cheers

MTM

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Tricia Drammeh link
21/4/2013 06:16:51 pm

I love this post. We all fall sometimes. That's what life is about--learning to take calculated risks instead of living in fear of failure. Thanks for sharing this.

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Teresa link
22/4/2013 12:08:09 pm

Love it! This is so true!!

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Lindsey J Parsons link
23/4/2013 02:51:15 pm

I've fallen so many times! I've fallen off horses too many times! But if I hadn't brushed myself down and got back on I would have missed out on so many wonderful experiences! Great post! :)

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