Rebuilding Rob

Daily writing prompt

What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

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The greatest teacher, failure is.

Yoda, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

This probably sounds kinda morbid, but I believed my failures have helped me grow more than anything else in life.

As I’m writing this tonight, my thoughts are heavily on my relationships. It’s probably because I just got home from a date on Friday night. Well, the date itself wasn’t anything terrible, it was hardly memorable either. But I digress.

My marriage, and my divorce taught me what I would do and what I would tolerate in a relationship. On the other hand, the end of my relationship with X2 taught me what I would not do, and what I would not tolerate in a relationship.

I’m not one of those people who is into suffering and misery and hardship, but I do feel like failure, and how we respond to failure teaches us more about ourselves than our successes do. As a result of failure, one has to decide how much they truly want something. How are they going to handle the adversity? Are they going to dig deeper; push themselves further and work harder than they did before in order to succeed?

Whenever I see people who have constantly been successful in life, it’s hard for me to look at them, and think that they have much character. I’ll use LeBron James as an example. From what we’ve heard, he has always been successful on a basketball court. People may call me a LeBron hater, but I really wonder how much backbone the guy truly has. Because he has been so successful in everything he’s done, we’ve never seen him really have to dig deep in order to succeed. We’ve never really seen him have to struggle through adversity.

My teaching tenure in South Carolina was a difficult one. I was unsuccessful and two attempts to pass my state teacher evaluation process. After my third year of teaching there, and the second time, not passing the evaluation, I was not offered another teaching contract. Furthermore, my state teaching certificate would not be renewed. I was out of the business. I floundered for a little bit. It wasn’t until I moved back to Michigan that I got back into school to get recertified and teaching once again.

I had to lose my teaching certificate in order to decide how much I really wanted it. I was at a “adapt or die“ point in my career. If I wanted to continue as a teacher, I had to do things differently. getting recertified in Michigan was probably the biggest achievement of my career because I found out just how much I wanted to teach. It was through adversity that I learned exactly what kind of teacher I wanted to be.

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

• Acknowledge Me: The Simple Art of Being Seen
• Rob’s Retro Movie Review: This is Spinal Tap (1984) – The Movie That Scaled to Eleven
• A Death in the Family (And My Disposable Income): My Life in Comics
• The Supporting Cast: Navigating the Eras of Male Friendship
• Life is What Happens: A Look Back at My Non-Existent 2025 Vision

The article “Feeling Yoda“ first appeared on Rebuilding Rob