From the Ashes . . .

After the turmoil of the last week, I remembered my favourite Easter song by Michael Mangan, which is sung during the lent to give hope and to remind us that things will be ok. It goes something like this:

Fire in the forest leaves us ashes
Ashes, lie smoking on the ground.
All the old and dead wood lie in ashes
But don't be sad don't let it bring you down.

Now we leave our failings far behind us
Leave them in the forest fire to burn.

From the Ashes new seeds are sown
From the Ashes new life will grow
Leave the past in Ashes
Let the old things give way.
Start a fresh new life

In the Ashes
From the Ashes
Out of Ashes.

Every time I think of this song it is because I am sad and need some perspective on what I am doing. Is it the end of the world?  Can whatever I have done be fixed? And if not to remind me that I need to accept and move on. It seems to me that in the last week many people have had setbacks and upsetting moments, from Politicians, to Olympic favourites and of course me. The Prime Minister this week was able to overcome the unfortunate events of COAG when she could not get agreements with some states over the National Disability Insurance Scheme, when the next day the uncooperative states came to the senses. On a different note our Australian Olympic favourites, especially in the pool have had to deal with loss as well, but to me the loss of winning gold, but still receiving a silver or bronze medal is still incredibly amazing. And so what if we came 4th in a final, that just means that Australia is 4th IN THE WORLD!! I am sure everybody watching the Olympics at home would love to be 4th in the world and something. . anything, am I right? But this is not supposed to be a rant about the pressure we as a society have put on our athletes to succeed and anything less than perfect is a fail, because it is not.

Teachers and parents tell students that it is not so much the grade you get for a test or an assignment that they worry about, it is how we deal with the grade when you get it back. If the grade is not what you wanted it should spur you on to try and do better, and if it was, make sure you do not take your eye of the end goal, and this year for many of my peers that goal is to get into our University course. Now of course I, along with many others know that is takes time to digest the feeling of failure, or failure in the eyes of the beholder, but at the end of the day we need to move on. One of the down falls of the Olympics is that we get so swept away by the glitz and glamour of the medals that sometimes I think we forget that the athletes are human. Who has the right to say that Leisel Jones is fat? She is an Olympic champion who has qualified to attend the games, that should be enough.

Failure sucks. No one like to fail, or do worse than other people, especially their friends, but behind every winner, every successful endeavour are failures, are people not achieving their goals, dreams and fulfilling their hopes and desires. Sometimes failures can be turned into happy endings, like the NWS and Victoria agreeing to the needed NDIS funding but sometimes we need to accept and more on from that failed grade, that failed dream, because there will always be other goals, other things we want more than the one that failed. It sometimes would do us well to remember that, an try and put our lives into perspective, because when everything looks bleak there must be a silver lining because that is life, and to use the cliche' saying, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Even though it is hard and confidence breaking the best thing anyone can do is remember that what ever happens one failure, one setback is the groundwork for bigger and better things, and one day hopefully we can all look back and say, yeah I needed that hard time because my life needed a shake up and from it I found the strength to continue and be better than ever.