Get up and go again

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain
And the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again.

- Unknown -

I have no idea who wrote that nursery rhyme and little clue on when it originated - somewhere around the early 1900's in the United States I believe - but recently listened to the wife of a good friend of mine use it as a tool to teach her young daughter a lesson. I'm not sure she's old enough for that lesson to sink in but it's lessons like these that, if repeated habitually, eventually stick and I thought it was really cool.

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Essentially, the lesson was, don't give up when things get difficult or go wrong, get up and go again.

It's a great lesson and one I think many people (adults) need to learn - quitting, avoiding and giving in seems to be very prevalent these days; quitting achieves nothing though and re-evaluating, planning and getting on with things does.

Over the last few days I've been teaching my nephew how to play the card game called Uno and there's been a couple of times in which his lack of skill, problem-solving and strategy has caused him some monumental defeats. I think that's awesome because he had the chance to learn from it although he didn't think it was awesome at all.

He got frustrated, disheartened, annoyed, angry, petulant and other such six-and-half-year-old things and I knew he would, but I also knew he'd rebound, knuckle down and push on, which he did much to his credit. He's not the best player I've ever seen (neither am I) but he'll get better and to be honest that's besides the point. The point is that giving up when things are difficult, don't go our way, when we fail or are simply bad at something is a negative thing; those things don't have to cause that negative reaction though and we have the choice of what to do in times like that and, just like the itsy bitsy spider, we can get the fuck up and move shit forward to more positive results. I'm really pleased to see that's what my nephew did.

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Have you ever learned a very valuable lesson after at first giving up, capitulation or avoiding a situation or thing that didn't go your way? If you'd like to comment please go ahead.