Vachon Imagined

This morning my son was playing his Nintendo Switch when revenge, madness, and the fires of defeat made their grand appearance.

It’s how he gets when he’s losing.

And truthfully, I like the heat.

I like that he wants to win. I love that he wants to triumph. There is something beautiful about caring enough to be disappointed. There is something alive in that fire.

But in a world of infinite possibility, you’re not always going to win.

After he nearly threw the game onto the floor—which, for the record, should be grateful it survived—I took it from his hands and reminded him for what felt like the 1,000,999,888th time:

Go back to your body.

First, face the fact that you lost.

Not the story about the loss. Not the injustice of the loss. Not the reasons for the loss.

Just the fact.

You lost.

Because all resistance produces suffering.

Then I asked him, “What do you feel?”

Feeling has fallen out of favor in many cultures. It is often treated as the weaker force, the softer force, the feminine force. Yet feeling is what turns possibility into reality.

A person does not simply think, I can do that.

They feel it.

They feel life moving within them toward an action, a creation, a decision. Some call this spirit. Others call it will. The name matters less than the fact that it is a force.

And it is this force that shapes our lives.

The ability to return to that force—to face the facts, to face reality, and then to face ourselves—is the beginning of courage.

Not the courage to win.

The courage to remain present.

To feel disappointment without becoming it.

To feel anger without becoming consumed by it.

To lose without losing yourself.

That is what allows us to pick ourselves up and try again.

Not because the circumstances have changed.

But because we have.

And whether the challenge is a video game, a relationship, a dream, or a life that refuses to go according to plan, the path remains the same:

Face the facts.

Feel what is there.

Return to yourself.

Then begin again.