Through the ups and downs of life, things normally turn out okay. But is that because life keeps going or because we choose to learn from our experiences? For many people like myself, there is the fear that we will never reach our goals. We go through our days until something unexpected happens and throws us out of our comfort zone. Failure for example, not only shocks us but it dampens our confidence. Messing up isn't something many of us enjoy doing but we still find a way around it. It all comes down to the choices we make after the chaos. If you let it beat you down, you'll stay down. If you want to give it another try, then get back up. And if neither of those options sound good, I'm sure there's a way to crawl around to look for a fresh start.
Take "Monsters University" for example (spoiler ahead!) Two best friends get expelled. The movie begins with all the excitement of college, stocked with studying and shenanigans. As the story progresses, Mike and Sulley get into a mess of things that ultimately destroys their college careers. They no longer have the option to live in their fraternity or finish their scaring degrees. Being forced out of the university probably stung like pink Glow Urchins, but the process gave them a fresh start; Mike and Sulley took their opportunity to jump into the workforce, becoming the strongest scaring team Monsters Inc. had ever seen. In many cases, people—or monsters—let failure get the best of them. It's never easy to get going again. Mike and Sulley made an example that sometimes failure is what puts you on the path you thought you were already on. Their setback didn't stop them, it was merely a redirection.
To live life is to prove to yourself that you're much bigger than the failures and mistakes that tell you otherwise. The brothers of Oozma Kappa were all told point-blank they weren't scary. They took their failures as scarers and let it become reality. It wasn't the right path, so Mike and Sulley taught them the importance of confidence and perseverance. As a group, the monsters worked to get the stench of failure pushed in the right direction. Instead of dragging it along, they learned to accept it for what it is and keep it close behind instead of tethered.
We can learn to love the life that gets thrown at us. We can grow by learning what not to do and become better versions of ourselves. Sometimes the importance isn't even where we end up, but instead how we got there. The struggles make us strong and the failures make us wise. Embrace the inevitable; you will fail. What matters is the direction you take those failures. Mike and Sulley reached their end goal; their path was a little shaken, but they were all the wiser because of it.
