Today, I was hard core jamming out to the song “Tubthumping” by Chumbawama.

(Who is Chumbawama, you ask? I am sorry that I do not have the answer for you.)

Throughout the entire day, this song was stuck in my head. Especially the infamous lyrics, “I get knocked down, but I get up again, you are never going to keep me down”.

And after a whole day of having this song stuck in my head (and singing it out loud obnoxiously from time to time), I finally came to the conclusion that not only is this song really catchy, but it also has an incredible message to it.

Lately, I have found myself a little rattled by life. Life is throwing me a lot of curveballs, and a lot of things I don’t want to happen are happening. I am reminded in this season that I am not the orchestrator of my own life. It’s been tough to submit to the life that I simply can’t control.

However, I think of this song and it just lifts me up. Yes, life can be really really hard, and not all things go the way we want them to. But even though we can’t control what happens to us, we have full control over how we respond to what happens to us.

The inspirational single cover for all y’all.

All in all, failure is going to happen. Failure happened to Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Beyonce, and it has happened to you.

We are going to reach for things that we thought we could achieve, and we are going to fall short. Some people we love are going to walk away from us. Even though we plan different things for those relationships, we don’t always get what we want. We are going to make mistakes that hurt how we see ourselves. Mistakes that make us feel so shameful that we can barely even learn to love ourselves. We are going to not get that position we thought we were made for. We are going to be rejected. We are going to fall short. We are going to be knocked down.

But heck yeah Chumbawama WE ARE GOING TO GET BACK UP AGAIN!

And I say that in all caps because it emphasizes how much we need to be fired up during times like these. To bounce back from being thrown on the ground and stepped on takes a lot of courage and strength. We almost need to be fired up when we are all “woe is me”.

We can’t just stay where we are in our little holes of insecurity, afraid that if we step out and take a chance we are going to be let down again. We can not let fear run our lives.

Instead, we need to let hope be an anchor for our souls. We need to get back up and try again. We need to apply for a different job or a new internship, we need to seek people who love us for who we are, we need to only settle for a man who will treat us how we deserve to be treated.

Bouncing back from heartbreak and failure and unexpectedness shouldn’t break us, this should all shape us. But only you and I are in control of that transformation.

So next time you find yourself in a position of shame or rejection or failure, make a choice to not wallow in it. Instead, take a look at your circumstances with a salt of gratitude, because they are only going to reveal the unstoppable character inside of you.

Xoxo,

Ash