Things grow from the ground up; plants, people, buildings, trees, etc. As a baby, you learn to walk by learning to crawl on the ground. A baby's first steps are shaky but some of the most beautiful moments you'll ever see, only to be cut short by a fall. But what happens after they fall? They stand up and try to walk again. They know that it's okay to tumble.

There's a saying about perseverance that goes: "Get knocked down seven times, stand up eight." Perseverance is one of the most admirable qualities a person can have. It is a quality that separates the ordinary and the extraordinary. Take a second to think of some of America's most influential people-- Martin Luther King Jr., Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg to name a few. Think of the amount of time and effort they put into their occupations and passions to get to where they are. Think of the amount of times the odds were stacked against them, how many times they would try for something and not succeed, think about all of the times they took a tumble along their journey. It's probably more times than you can actually think of. Think of some of the greatest athletes in the world, for example theres Tom Brady, Christiano Ronaldo, and Serena Williams. Professional athletes who have been playing a sport they love since they could get their hands on a ball or racket. From the time they start to this very day, they have played thousands upon thousands of games.. that's thousands of opportunities to fail, to fall, to become unsuccessful. As I am also an athlete, I understand that you cannot have a perfect career, it is nearly impossible, odds are 10 million to one. Think of every game they have ever lost, there's probably once again too many to count. Each loss is a failure, a tumble they took along the road. BUT, look at how successful they have become. They have become successful because of the strength they stood up with after being knocked down.

With each tumble comes a lesson. I, myself, have taken many, many tumbles both figuratively and actually. The first tumble I can vividly remember was my first breakup. I was upset and sad but did I let it stop me? No. I fought back and got back up with more confidence than anybody else had ever seen in me. I did not let a failure define me, instead I looked for the lesson within the mistake. Every experience you have is either a blessing or a lesson, but within that blessing there is a lesson to be learned and within every lesson it is a blessing in itself. For instance, the other day I was very excited about eating Orange Leaf that I decided to run in the parking lot. I was wearing Crocs, and my croc got stuck on a rock and I totally ate the pavement. Pavement-1 Ellie-0. But what did I learn from that? I learned that you shouldn't run with a container of frozen yogurt because you won't be able to stop yourself from falling. Did I let my fall stop me from enjoying my Orange Leaf? HECK NO! I loved every second of it. My perseverance to eat my fro-yo was what made me come back from my tumble even stronger. Moral of the story, don't run in crocs and always, ALWAYS keep going after you've been knocked down.