26 - Celebrating Failure

About two weeks ago I was helping my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins move into a new house. We had the U-Haul for two days to move every thing from their old house to a storage unit for a couple weeks and two more days to move every thing from the storage unit into the new house. It was the last day of moving things into the new house and the last load of boxes and furniture. It was then, loading up the final load of boxes that I realized that the giant step that we had been lugging heavy furniture over for two days out of the old house and two days into the new house, nearly killing ourselves every time, could be eliminated if we had just lifted the ramp up and put it in the notches of the truck. On the left is an example of the massive step up into the truck from the ramp that we had been lugging furniture over the whole time, and on the right is my photo that I took after I had the "Are you kidding me!" moment of realization. Literally, that's what I yelled. Obviously, from this I learned that the U-Haul ramp has notches that it is supposed to go into to eliminate the step up into the truck. In this case there were seven people helping move at one point or another, and it took until the last load up for me to realize this massive failure.

The massive step from the ramp to the inside of the truck.

When the ramp is properly used there is no step.

To top this day off, there's more.  I was tired from two full days of moving heavy furniture and boxes. So when it came to unloading my cousins Razor scooter, you know the ones that kill your ankles, from the truck, I thought it would be a great idea to ride the scooter down the ramp of the U- Haul. I know what your thinking, but I made it down the ramp great, it was when I went to get off of the scooter that I some how managed to trip over it and fall to my hands and knees. Which put a scrape on my knee and a hole in my jeans. This, of course, spawned laughs from everyone who witnessed this laps in judgement.

Failure is hard, and sometime embarrassing, but it's how we learn as humans. From this experience I know to always put the U-Haul ramp in the proper position before moving big heavy furniture and that riding down a steep U-Haul ramp in a scooter isn't a very good idea. The best way that I handle failure is the knowledge that without failure we would never have success. This class has somewhat changed my perspective on failure, because sometimes failure is the only way that you are able to find success, and I think that I am more likely to take some risks now than I was just a few months ago.