Pick yourself up and dust yourself off - have you ever heard those words before? Maybe some well intentioned person has said them to you or you have said them to yourself at one point in your life? It's an old term - I remember hearing it as a kid and it's been a part of my vocabulary since I was very young. Best of all, those words have served me very well to this day.

For those of you not familiar with what picking yourself up and dusting yourself off means, let me enlighten you: It DOES not mean picking yourself up, hanging yourself by the toes from a rafter and applying a duster to your body. It means when the chips are down, all looks lost and you have fallen flat on your face- PICK YOURSELF UP, dust yourself off and get back in the game- and by the game I mean the game of life!

"Yeah, easy for you to say, huh?", you might be saying. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M GOING THROUGH OR WHAT I'VE BEEN THROUGH!"

This is true, I don't, but I can tell you from life experience that I probably have an idea, and it's not pretty. Getting up when things are tough is one of the hardest things a person can do. Not only do you NOT feel like doing it but it's just so much easier to wallow in self pity and in those I told you so's, if ONLY'S, the would haves, should haves and the could haves.

But see that's when we have to pick ourselves up! Remember as a kid when you played sports and tripped or were playing with friends and you fell down? Did you remain on the pavement and say "BAHHH!!!" I can't get up??? Of course not. You may have gotten mad, got embarrassed, been a little nonplussed for a few moments but YOU DID NOT REMAIN ON THE GROUND. You got up, maybe a little torn and bloody, but you got up, dusted the little pebbles off, looked around and continued on with LIFE.

 

So being that my dads favorite saying was "never give up!" I just thought that today's little rant would be about getting yourself back up and dusting yourself off - and just so you don't feel alone, that's exactly what I'm having to do these days. I don't feel like it, I want to rage against it, I want to throw on a great big pout and say I don't want to do it, but guess what? I have to - I have no other choice. I don't have a maid to bring me whatever I need while I lay whining on the ground........ I don't have a money tree out back last time I checked ...... and when I last looked in the kitchen the gourmet chef was nowhere around............

So dog gone it, where's that dang duster at?

(Dorsi Diaz is a freelance writer and former small business owner)