Legos vs. a House of Cards

"You are a stack of legos, not a house of cards. One gust of wind will not knock you down."

My boyfriend gave me that analogy last week. It's something that I think everyone can take something from.

So often I find myself expecting or predicting the worst. I make one mistake and I get it in my head that everything I have worked for and built will come crashing down around me. I sometimes feel that I need to be absolutely perfect in everything that I do. I check and double check things, thinking that I have somehow messed up and that even if I do somehow mess up...that will be it. Whatever relationship, task, or job I have been doing or working on will be over.

But something that Matt reminded me of, and constantly reminds me of, is that's not how it works. That is not how life works. Everything does not crash down because of one thing.

When I was panicking over the weekend while Matt was here he started talking to me about how I am not a house of cards. A house of cards can have one small gust of wind knock it over. It falls over and EVERYTHING falls down. The cards tumble and all of your work is gone. You have to start over from card one and try again. He explained to me that this is sometimes how I view myself.

Now, a stack of legos...that's harder to pull apart. Sure, you can knock it over, but only a few legos will fall off at a time. To really destroy the stack of legos, you really need to deliberately attack it. If a gust of wind comes by, the stack might fall over, but it won't fall apart. It's easy to stand back up and continue building on. Everything does not fall apart so easily, and neither do things in life. In order for everything to fall apart we must systematically and deliberately take things apart. And while we shouldn't try to continue to do the wrong thing, it's going to take more than one mistake to completely destroy everything we've built in our lives.

When I took Matt to the airport (both times...which is a story for another time) he looked at me and said "remember. You are legos, not a house of cards." And really, it's something I need to be remembering. It's something I think a lot of us should remember. We are too hard on ourselves when it comes to our failures and mistakes. We feel as if there is no coming back from things...but if we just remember that we are stronger than that, and that it takes more than a few mistakes to truly tear us down, I think we could all be a lot happier with ourselves.