Aging has brought on a different kind competition concerning learning new thing. It's easier to just refuse to learn.
Night before last I was looking up exercises for older people to save on my phone on Youtube. I thought I knew what I was doing but according to my daughter I didn't. It's one thing to make a mistake and you being the only one to know about it, but to have one that gets flashed over Facebook can cause shame. I try very hard to not post offensive things, and it's mostly quotes and words that uplift Jesus for He is the reason I stay on Facebook. I have made mistakes before because I did not understand how to post something, and I think that is what happened in this incident.
I wanted to follow this one young man on YouTube who has a video on exercises for older people. Not just follow him but save his videos on my private message board.
Somehow, without me knowing it, a video of another young hunk of a man doing a very provocative exercise got posted to my Facebook story that reads out to everyone on Facebook. The following morn my daughter came over and ask me if I was posting exercise videos late last night and I said, yes, why? When she showed me this video, she was telling how they, the family were all laughing over it.
It was one of those moments I knew I could choose to laugh about it too or get offended they were laughing at me.
So, what does this have to do with self-competition?
This was the quote I learned that day that helped me, {Your competition isn't against other people. You competition is against your procrastination, your negative thoughts, your comfort zone. Compete against those.)
I realized this quote I had just read that day was playing in my head and God was trying to teach me something.
Let me say this before I bring home the truth God gave me. Getting older is not fun or for sissy as they say. The body and mind does not work the way it used to; things are slower to catch on to. Learning new things take longer or never really come to a head where you can say, oh, I got this. Learning something new is out of my comfort house so I must compete with the part of me that does not want to learn.
I do not want to stop looking things up on the internet and Facebook. I have too many friends and people I follow and who follow me. But when I fail outwardly and others know it and are laughing at my mistake, it's hard to not get mad at myself and just give up. One never gets too old to not feel embarrassed when making a mistake that others see.
I chose to laugh with my family over this which helped everyone, especially me. Laughing at oneself is good therapy. While it might sound surprising, being able to make fun of yourself can be good for your self-esteem. It might even improve your relationships and help you cope more effectively with the challenges that life throws at you.
When you learn to be competitive with yourself instead of with other people, you don't have to panic because someone else got something first. You know it's coming to you at the right place, at the right time, when you put in the work, or the heart required to get it. You can put stock in what you do have and see what you have accomplished and use that as a springboard to make yourself more successful — not just to follow the footsteps of other people who have already succeeded in something.
Emma Lord
All this to let you know after I laugh with my family I let my daughter teach me on my phone how to do what I wanted to do. She never talked down to me or made me feel stupid at my lack of knowledge. So maybe, just maybe this old women could step out of her comfort zone and learn more new things.
