I guess the purpose of falling is to get back up, and it’s nice when we can. I think we often can, even when we feel like we can’t.

But the picture produced by the sentiment is usually a nice one. You just stagger up, wipe the dust off of your ass with a cowboy hat as you smile and laugh, and an audience laughs back and nods approvingly. And that’s that.

But it often isn’t like that. When it’s really important, those are the times when you’re like someone who has had the shit knocked out of him, and you go to get up, but fall again, and do it again and again and each time it really hurts and feels like a full-on failure. But you eventually get to a place where you can sit for a while. Then you try to take a step, and you might make a few, but then you fall again. And again.

But the thing is, it’s at that point that the sentiment is most important. That you just have to gather your strength and get back up, again, and again, and again, until you have a steady gait again and can go where you want to go.

And it might take a bunch of shenanigans to get yourself to do something like that… and a whole lot of your energy. So I guess we have to pick our wolves and let go of some stuff that is sapping our energy, and maybe some stuff we like… but that’s a matter of priorities.

None of us has an infinite amount of time here or an infinite amount of energy.