You’re not going to believe this.

We won that thing! 

If you’ve read our last post, you know exactly what I’m talking about. We had a bit of an Easter egg decorating fiasco, in which my desire for my son to win a competition at his school ultimately lead to misery, ruination, and karmically-accursed eggs.

Well, when I picked the boy up from school today he let me know that his egg, his poor, afflicted, at-least-not-the-worst-of-the-bunch egg, had actually claimed top honors in his class. I couldn’t help but laugh, and I suppose I’ve learned yet one more thing from this whole experience.

Namely, it’s imminently self-defeating to pull yourself out of contention just because you feel that you have no chance of succeeding at something.

Even if you think that what you’ve produced – be it a painting, a sonnet, a meatloaf, a novel, or an iPhone app – is unworthy of consideration, there may be people – perhaps lots of them – out there who would absolutely love your work.

It may not even be something tangible. I suppose there are whole lonely swathes of people who keep themselves out of the relationship market, who withdraw into a self-imposed solitude, simply because they feel that their ‘product’ – i.e. themselves – is not good enough. Even if you think your egg is an ovoid hunk of crap (and I’m speaking metaphorically here), there is inevitably someone out there who adores ovoid hunks of crap (again, metaphorically speaking).

If this competition had been voluntary, I’m pretty sure my son would have decided not to enter and I, much as I am ashamed to admit it, would have probably backed that decision. That would have been moronic, but I’m the bigger moron here because at my age I should know better.

So here’s to all the ovoid hunks of crap out there. While you might believe that what you’ve done or who you are is nothing more than a failure, it could always, always, turn out to be a success. All you need is a bit of luck, a smidgeon of determination, and a few folks who are far less judgmental – and hard on yourself – than you are.

The winning egg in question