The Coin

Heads and tails are inseparable. You can’t have a coin with just heads and you can’t have one with just tails. Heads and tails are a package deal. Everything in life is the same way. You can’t open yourself up to love without opening yourself up to the possibility for pain. When you take a risk, there is just as much potential for reward and success as there is for loss and failure.

Because of the potential for pain and disappointment, it is tempting to play it safe. We keep our guards up and don’t let anyone get close. We don’t take the risk and opt instead for the predictable and secure. When we live this way, we mitigate the amount of pain we might feel. We don’t face any big failures or disappointments.

We live lives of quiet desperation.

When we make decisions to try to live a life of just head or just tails, we sacrifice a lot, and deep inside of us, I think we know it. There is that whisper deep within our souls that tells us that there is more. We can do more. We can be more. We can experience more. The catch is that to have those high highs, we have to risk the low lows.

The lows: pain, frustration, disappointment, bitter defeats, can be almost unbearable. Of course, we humans, instinctively avoid those aching emotions. Yet, if we don’t have those ‘tail’ moments, we can’t have those heady heads either.

I don’t like to get really personal on this blog, though occasionally I do. This is one of those occasions. For the past five months, I’ve been going through some pretty low lows and it’s been hard. It’s been very hard. I’ve had some decidedly un-life coachy moments along the way. And I’m writing this today for me as much as for you.

As bad as things have been, I know two things.

1. I’ve had some incredibly high highs.
2. I’ll have some incredibly high highs again because in the cycle of life, you don’t just have tails.

Heads and tails are a package deal.