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| Building our empire |
Familiar with the game Jenga? Once upon a time I held the title of "Jenga Champion of the World" in our house. I admit now that it was a title I graced upon myself, and highly disputed among the other champions in our arena.
In the game, one remove blocks from the somewhere in the tower, and places it on the top without causing the whole thing to crash down.
A short time ago, we decided to dust off the old championship belt and continue on with the challenger (my daughter) dueling the reigning king (me). This has always been a sore point with both of us, because obviously we both claim rights to the golden crown. As usual we competed for the best of two out of three games.
It was a battle for the ages to witness; sweat beading upon our brows, completely focused upon the task at hand. That task obviously was to beat the other one into utter humiliation. She won two out of three... but that may be a story for another time.
As the war raged on, each tower grew ever closer to reaching the heavens only to come crashing down eventually in a flurry of scattered pieces and thunder that brought the attentions of others in the house trying to focus on their own activities. Each time our current masterpiece crumbled under the pressure of being precariously balanced upon a now unsteady foundation.... we rebuilt the the work of art and began again.
That got me thinking... because, as many of you now know, I have a story for everything. So here we go.
We (I) spend so much time beginning with a perfect structure according to the blueprints. Then we (I) begin to take out and attempt to rearrange the pieces into something taller in an attempt to prove we (I) can build the tallest tower around. Thus proclaiming for all to see that I have indeed created a mighty empire.
But as we all know, all empires eventually fall.
What the hell? I spend time, extra time and extra effort with the tremors to remove and strategically align the shards of my empire (life) onto the top of my tower only to watch it fall to the earth... time after time after time.
Then it hit me like crashing into a mountain at the speed of sound:
The blueprint for the tower is there. But, it is our (my) place in this lifetime to remove some pieces and put them in other places. I believe, that like unfolding the original blueprint only to see a whole other part we've (I've) not seen, The design is set to collapse from the beginning. The point being, as stated in the small print in the notes that we (I) usually don't pay much attention to, is to continue the process as many times as it takes. (sort of like that whole lather, rinse, and repeat as necessary, thing).
I've titled the series of these blogs "Falling Up". I can think of no better analogy right now than this as to what falling up is about.
Up and up, to fall and get up to do it all again. Only the next time we (I) move different different pieces around in the hopes of creating a solid foundation. Moving pieces with things like "arrogance", "greed", "self pity", "being an a** to others" etc.. to places where they don't belong...... reigns down the thunder and the whole damn thing comes crumbling down. Surely a bitter lesson, but maybe an essential one for us (me).
Try to build a solid foundation with the right pieces and don't worry about how tall or vast you (I) make our (my) empire. Instead understand that in time it will fall, as all empires do. The key is to get up and rebuild by learning from previous moves.
The key just may be to "FALL UP" instead of fall down.
