Good morning, mes amis. 
John Michael Montgomery recorded a song about 30 years ago called “Life’s a Dance”. (It was actually written by Allen Shamblin and Steve Seskin but that’s for another time.)
The simple lyrics hold timeless truth:
“When I was fourteen I was fallin’ fast
For a blue eyed girl in my homeroom class
Tryin’ to find the courage to ask her out
Was like tryin’ to get oil from a waterspout
What she would have said I can’t say
I never did ask and she moved away
But I learned somethin’ from my blue eyed girl
Sink or swim you gotta give it a whirl
Life’s a dance you learn as you go
Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow
Don’t worry about what you don’t know
Life’s a dance you learn as you go”
It was also recorded on an ancient yet timeless parchment:
“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven”.
Just as Mr. SatchBoogie in the pic here has much wisdom gained over his nearly 17 years of life, so can we all. It is all a matter of perspective.
In that song, the girl in his homeroom class was a symbol of failure. He didn’t muster the courage to ask her out. She moved away. He would never know what she might have said. He didn’t swim. He sank.
…but they key is later in the song. “Sink or swim, you gotta give it a whirl”. He didn’t let that temporary “failure” define his life. He probably shed a tear when she moved, but that was temporal. He simply chalked it up to a valuable lesson learned, and he chose to swim.
Mes amis, my hope is this day, this beautiful day, none of you will any longer let your past “failures” define you. Who (or what) was the “blue eyed girl” in your life? What was the “homeroom class”?
Some of you right now are just now realizing you have been doing that for months, years, decades. It is eating your lunch and you now know it. Time to get the chalk out, stop sinking and start swimming.
How? Today is a new day filled with endless possibilities. True, “there is a time for every purpose” so when our circumstances may seem bleak at first, we need to remember especially then- it is all purposed, and if we choose the right perspective, we will see and hear that purpose through it all. The “failures” become lessons…wisdom wins.
No matter who you WERE or what you’ve DONE, today is a brand new day. You can choose right now for this day to be the first day of a fantastic journey, for the rest of your life.
No matter what. …and I hope you do. Some may choose not to see you for who you ARE now but who you WERE. …and that’s OK. …they might be sinking right now too. Life is happening all around us. All we have is now.
Sink or swim, you gotta give it a whirl, y’all.
Much love mes amis, from down the bayou.