Welcome to the Our Moral Compass Podcast. Each daily reading focuses on a different quote on how we can best apply it to our own moral compass and one of the five areas in Social Emotional Learning: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills and Responsible Decision Making. Thank you for listening and we hope you consider subscribing to the podcast for future episodes.
Stand Up
“If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.”
-H.G. Wells
As we go about living our lives we all of grand plans of how we’d like our life to turn out when it is all said in done. However like the boxer Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.” The question is what are you going to do if that punch causes you to hit the canvas: stay down or get back up? It is probably one of the most important decisions you are ever going to have to make and it is something that can occur multiples times over the course of your life. H.G. Wells, writer of such famous novels as War of the Worlds and The Time Machine encourages us to stand up when we fall down.
Is it easier to just stay down? The obvious answer is yes, but in my opinion it is not the right one because nobody ever got anything accomplished laying on their backside. For all intense and purposes it does hurt emotionally to get knocked down by someone or something but remember we cannot control the situation itself, only our response to it.
I was bullied in middle school for being smart and at the time wore glasses. I was called names and sometimes things even became physical from those bullies as those usually happened in the boys locker room when supervision was less than stellar. And one time if one of my friends, Andrew Wilson, wasn’t there to defend me and tell them to leave me alone, I’m not sure what would have happened.* Unfortunately I never had the gumption to physically fight back because I knew if I did that I’d be no better than how they were behaving and I was always taught that two wrongs don’t make a right. I instead decided to take the high road and dust myself off an go about my day and eventually it stopped. I made a choice to get back up and I’m glad I did because it made me stronger in the long run.
I’m sure we have all had experiences in our lives where we have fallen down at times but we somehow got back up for a just cause whether it be for our children, friends or most importantly for our own well being. When we make the decision to stand back up it shows that we believe in ourselves and our ability to handle anything that comes our way. Each time we do this it continues to build within us a strong sense of resilience. It this is something we need now more than ever. So if you get knocked down, make sure to get up again and decide that nothing is ever going keep you down. If you do this, your life will be better for it.
*I do want to take a moment to thank Andrew Wilson who went to school with me at Martin Luther King, Jr High School and Seneca Valley High School in Germantown, Maryland. He was my first Black friend and although we have lost touch I wanted to let him know how much I appreciated him looking out for me. It is my hope that he knows how much he has meant to me and I have never forgotten what he did for me on that day. I am forever grateful I will spend the rest of my life standing by and for those who continue to be treated unjustly because black lives matter, not just today and because what is happening right now, but every day.
What does this quote mean to you and how can you apply today’s message towards developing your responsible decision making skills?
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Music from https://filmmusic.io
“Relaxing Piano Music” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
A special thank you to Feedspot for recognizing the Our Moral Compass podcast as one of the Top 10 Social Emotional Learning Podcasts on the internet. It is an honor to be amongst the other podcasts on this list as we all strive to make this world a better place.
Becoming The Change 