We Are Born Winning

The greatest defense is being who you are.

~Mark Nepo

YOU ARE A WINNER!  Yes, you!  There.  I said it.  Cliche perhaps, but true.  Think about it...

The whole process of coming to Life is like a championship sporting event.  The female ovaries release an egg.  Hundreds of sperm race to meet it, but only a lucky few actually make it to the Fallopian gate to compete for a chance at fertilization.  My brother-in-law calls it "getting one past the goalie!"  I call it a miracle.  

No matter the argument for when life begins, there is this moment when the lone sperm penetrates the mature egg and all kinds of stuff starts happening.  Cells change, divide and Life begins to express itself in unique and incredible ways.  

It's mind-blowing, really, everything that has to happen and everything that could possibly go wrong in the process.  If the ovaries fail to produce an egg, or if it is brittle and defective, nothing happens.  If there's no sperm around to fertilize that egg at just the right moment, nothing happens.  If more than one sperm penetrates the egg at the same time, again, what we have is a failure to fertilize.  

Then there's everything that can go wrong during a pregnancy and complications at birth, not to mention the million-and-one things that can derail our journey once we're here--accidents, disease, careless mistakes--it's a wonder any of us make it to adulthood; especially when you consider the crazy, compromising situations we can get ourselves into because we're human and sometimes make really bad decisions even with the best of intentions. 

Then one day we're walking around--all arms and legs, opinions and attitudes--drowning in feelings of low self-esteem because everything seems to be going so horribly wrong.  Yet that's precisely when we need to remember the simple fact that we're here.  

You, in human form, having this fabulously strange, wonderful and, at times, heartbreaking experience.  And that, my friend, makes YOU a winner!