Life has a funny way of reminding us of our humanity. In the anticipation of the text from that special someone, we feel hesitation, fear of the maybe not, and hope for the maybe so. In the moment of birth, we feel pride in what we have, protection in its preservation, and unexplained euphoria in the mystery of creation. At the moment of failure, we desire to be hidden, quenched with embarrassment, and despaired with coming disapproval and disappointment. And in death, sadness swells, reflection mounts, and sober realization of mortality sets in. Life simply reminds us what it means to be human.

Often times, however, the lulls of life rock us to sleep with the commonality of everyday living. The moments of our emotional peak remind us more certainly that we are human. The steadfast reality reaches in just when we forget about what it means to live and found ourselves in that stream of existence alongside of everyone else. It is at this point that a reminder sets in. This reminder, like a moment in my office just today, takes us back to a moment of potential greatness or failure. The reminder nudges us toward recognition once again of our humanity.

Without that subtle yet sometime brutal reminder, it would be easy for all of us to dismiss one another at the moment of absolute failure and to idolize during moments of unrelenting success. To this point, I want to address an often overlooked but stark reality for every single one of us. We have all had to learn to fail in order to succeed. At the very moment of our existence, failure would become a necessary teacher to success. In learning to walk, we all held on and stumbled forward. In learning to speak, we made incoherent sounds and even learned erroneous words to signify what we really wanted, such as milk in place of juice. In riding the bike, we all fell at some point. In dating, we have all made mistakes. That sentence alone needs no further explanation for if anyone were to suggest