Day #9 in A Year of Positivity

“You never fail until you stop trying.” – Albert Einstein

Good morning from Pennsylvania and welcome to Day #9 in a Year of Positivity!

Today’s quote is brought to you by Albert Einstein, “You never fail until you stop trying.” I couldn’t agree more with this brilliant historical physicist. This quote can be used for really any situation. It actually reminds me of the game of Chess. I know, odd, but go with me here on this.

Life is like a game a chess. Your opponent (“life”) will throw all kinds of moves at you, and some may be expected, though some will be unexpected. Chess may be easy for some people, hard for others, and there are people who honestly don’t even know how to play at all. Personally, I fall in the category of people who couldn’t play this game to save her life. Thank God Wizard’s Chess isn’t real!

However, Chess has always been an appealing game to me. When I was a kid, I used to have intensely vivid dreams of living in Brooklyn, New York as a child and being taught how to play by VC. I haven’t found the right person to teach me the rules, and to teach me how to play, though I’ve seen people stumped for quite a bit with what move they should make next.

Your opponent won’t make it easy for you to win the game. It shouldn’t be easy, anyway. Life’s a challenge, and it’s meant to be full of learning opportunities. It’s meant to help you grow, to make you wiser. If life throws a curveball that stumps you, or gets you stuck in a rut, that’s an opportunity to be creative and think outside the box for resolutions on clearing the way to success or whatever the heart wants.

Since I mentioned VC just a short bit ago, I’ll use my situation as a perfect example. If you haven’t read anything on My Ancestral Journey yet, I’ll give a very brief overview. I grew up without my biological father in my life, and I was raised to believe that a man from Brooklyn, New York named VC was the man that half my genes came from. I spent a lot of childhood wondering about him, and I spent all of my teen years looking for him. I even wrote and sent letters during my senior year of high school to every man in the U.S. with this name that fell within the age parameters.

After high school graduation, I gave up on the search for quite a few years, because it seemed futile and pointless. I still had so many unanswered questions, but then my legal father gave me a new lead. I confronted my mother about it on my 29th birthday, but she shot down the theory immediately, put her foot down, and insisted my birth father was VC. Between my mother and my legal father, I didn’t know who was right, and again I felt defeated.

Life stumped me good on that one! I didn’t know what to do with the information I had … until I saw an advertisement for a Mother’s Day half-off discount on an Ancestry DNA kit. When it came in the mail, I essentially froze, because I was terrified of knowing the truth. I didn’t want to know if my mother or my legal father was wrong with their information. I put the DNA kit away in a drawer for 5 months until I reached the point of needing to know one way or the other. Long story short, I found my truth.

I reached my goal of finding my biological father and paternal family. They floored me with how quickly they accepted me, as I completely expected a horrible ending to that story, like I’ve read from so many others online. I know where the other half of me comes from now. I don’t have to wonder anymore what my birth father and paternal family are like. All my questions about genetics and health have been answered.

Taking the Ancestry DNA Kit was my outside-the-box move to this lifelong goal of mine. I may have taken a few hits with dead ends, and I may have taken a few beats here and there, but I didn’t fail on my mission of finding my birth father, because I didn’t stop trying. I would have failed only if I gave up, if I stopped trying. If I gave up on trying to find them, I wouldn’t be where I am today, with all of them in my life.

So, don’t let your opponent (“life”) stump you, and don’t let it push you down. Use that beautiful, creative mind to strategize, to improve your game plan, and then make your move!

You never fail until you stop trying.