Life is Infinitely More Beautiful When You Let Yourself Fall

Falling isn’t the same as failing, and it’s time we acknowledge the difference.

In nature, when things fall, we call them beautiful.

Water cascades down cliffs in divine displays of power. Leaves dry the hues of fire and dance in the autumn winds. Snow floats down in a flurry of crisp white, and rain pours over the earth, gifting us with life and preparing the sky to paint brilliant arcs of color.

The saying goes, you can’t have a rainbow without a little rain.

We acknowledge we can’t skip the rain, but that doesn’t stop us from attempting to fast forward it. We try to reach our rainbow — happiness, freedom, success — by fighting through the rain, praying our storms will pass as soon as possible and leave us in permanent peace. Leave us with perfection. Leave us to our rainbows.

There’s nothing wrong with enduring our storms, but life becomes easier when we learn to embrace them.

If nature falls in epic ways, why can’t you?

Anyone who knows anything about gardening — admittedly not me, a girl who can and has murdered a succulent — understands the importance of pruning, or cutting back the dead and dying parts of a plant to make room for new growth.

Here are some of the benefits; pruning deters pest infestations, promotes a plant’s natural shape, encourages the growth of healthy fruit and flowers, and reduces the risk of damage during a storm.

Getting rid of what’s old makes space for what’s new while simultaneously protecting and strengthening the plant. I hope it’s obvious I’m not off on a random tangent about gardening. You are the plant.

When you fall or “fail” by society’s flawed definition, you are pruned. You release what doesn’t work to make way for what does. Pruning happens to all of us, whether we like it or not, so it helps if we learn how to enjoy, or at least appreciate, the necessity of letting go.

But how can we learn to like falling? How do we stumble, plummet, and crash with the effortless grace of nature?

I’ve found only one solution: surrender.

Just as a waterfall doesn’t resist gravity, nor should we fight fate. We won’t win in the end, but we can make ourselves miserable in the middle. The other option is to trust the growth process: to repeatedly release and renew.

When the rain comes, and it will, we can choose to resent it, hideaway, and wait impatiently for the sun’s return. Or, we can slide on our favorite rain boots, prance in the puddles, and slip in the mud.

We can fall and get back up, take responsibility for our messes, and clean up after them. Our hardest falls may hurt us, but daily slip-ups and stumbles don’t bruise much but our egos.

We should allow this to happen. When bones break, they repair sturdier. When muscles tear, they grow tougher. And when egos are bruised, they heal humbler.

Through struggle, strength is born. Resistance rears resilience.

I no longer want to fear falling but learn how to find the beauty in it. I want to laugh when I wobble, take a deep breath, steady my stance, and try again, rejecting perfection in exchange for progress. I’m ready to prune and grow, flow and fall, revel in my rain, and rejoice in my rainbow.

I don’t have life figured out, but I know one thing for sure: life is infinitely more beautiful when you let yourself fall.

Are you ready to take the plunge?

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