It's About Getting Up

Someone once said, "What defines us is how well we rise after falling."

 

Sometimes we get hit in life and sometimes we get knocked down. Sometimes we created the fall and other times it's out of our control, the hit that is. What comes after the hit and the subsequent fall, often times is completely within our control.

 

By chance the other night, I came across  an HBO special called Boyish Girl Interrupted. I wasn't really paying attention at first. It was background noise actually. Comedian Tig Notaro was on stage in Boston for this one hour special. I didn't know a whole lot about her, but I was about to find out a lot more than I expected. She's not one of those rolling in the isles, belly laugh comedians. She's more of a story teller with a dry sense of humor. She was talking about everyday silly life stuff and she began to tell a story about becoming ill, her mother falling and hitting her head and dying 48 hours later. Then she found out on a routine Mammogram that she had breast cancer. A double mastectomy followed. This was all within a few months. I don't know about you, but that's a lot to take in in a short period of time.

 

It was what came next that really grabbed my attention, if the previous storyline wasn't enough for you. Tig Notaro removed her shirt and performed the last 15 minutes of her stand-up routine topless. Now, maybe where you come from stand-up comics go topless all the time, but not where I come from. You see, Tig decided not to have reconstructive surgery and she was pretty freaked out and upset about her body when it was over.

 

When we find our lives falling apart we have two choices. Stay down or get up. Get up and fight! Get up and heal! Get up and make the most of everything we learned when we were down there! Tig Notaro got up and did the only thing she could do to take control. She took her shirt off to a roaring crowd whom she energized and inspired to say...

 

"BRING IT ON LIFE! I'M READY FOR YOU!"

 

The most successful people fall all the time. What makes them successful is that they get up! They learn and they move forward to be better and live their dreams!

 

I dare you to fall on your ass as often as you can because you were brave enough to take the risk in the first place! I dare you to meet those circumstances that are out of your control with courage, vigor and lots and lots of humor!!!