Needing a win

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

A friend of mine was on a bad streak…seemingly every single thing she did, made, said or put herself out there for didn’t work. She was like Elaine in Seinfeld* during the episode when Elaine realizes (with horror) that she and George Constanza have traded places: now everything he touches turns to gold while everything she tries to do goes sidewise. People look at her like her bad mojo could rub off on them.
 
At one point during my friend’s string of failures she said, “I just need a win. If something — even something tiny — would just work out I’d feel like was getting somewhere and I know I’d be okay.” 
 
That was 20 some odd years ago but I never forgot that…how all it takes is a simple, even minor success to start turning something around.
 
A few weekends ago I found myself disheartened over a string of misses – not too disheartened, just a touch, but still enough to stall me out and make everything look just a tad dismal with a chance of doom. I needed a foothold but at the moment had no heart for getting there. It was also a negative 17 degrees out making even the win of a walk in the fresh air a contest I probably wasn’t going to win.
 
This set-up is when I know I must start engineering a win, any win, even a miniscule win to get some mouse-size amount of momentum going in my favor. In this situation I start small by making my bed, making it really good and with care. I always make my bed, but in circumstances such as this making my bed becomes mighty and meaningful, a symbol of success, a mark I can make on the world for the good and to my credit. All making my bed needs to do is get me to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing until I catch up with my success. 
 
While making my bed is a power move, I know, there is something else that can start to turn the tide. Something so small and subtle I often don’t realize what had started the reset: when someone is happy to see me. Who would even know we have that power?
 
Spread the love out there,
 
E