Chump or Champ?

Published by Roger Butner on


So, I fell down a couple days ago while out running. Tripped over a rough lump sticking up from the sidewalk concrete. I was running along Perkins Rd just before a busy intersection (ironically, at YMCA Plaza Dr), so there were plenty of folks to witness my grace. Once I hit that spot with my foot, there was no stopping the inevitable. And I knew it immediately.

“I’m going down like a chump in front of God and all these witnesses,” I thought to myself. Pretty sure a word or two came out of my mouth that weren’t exactly Christlike. And then I went down hard, scraping up both palms and my left knee. Despite the ugliness that spewed from my mouth, God saw fit to spare me tumbling out into the traffic flowing by on Perkins Rd, and my performance was limited to the sidewalk.

But as soon as I hit the ground, I was hit by this thought…

“I can lay here and wallow in shame, slowly getting up and slinking back home,”

OR

“I can hop up, square my shoulders, ignore the onlookers, focus on my goal, and finish this run like a man.”

I opted for the latter. Falls happen in life. And not just on sidewalks. But whether I handle it like a chump or a champ is up to me. So I fell? Big deal. Did I finish? Yes. Yes, I did.

Life won’t always be smooth sailing, my friends. You will have days of failure and discouragement along the road. But when those days come, and your knees get skinned up or worse, which will define you?

How you fell?

OR

How you got up and finished?

Keep pressing on toward the prize, Brothers and Sisters.

Categories: offbeat

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