Roman walks and falls and gets up and walks and falls and gets up, and walks and falls and gets up
and walks
It’s beautiful and it’s simple and it looks like it’d be painful,
but for Roman, it’s not
He doesn’t judge his ability to walk.
He doesn’t hang his head and sigh, breathing in his failure when he falls
He doesn’t rate himself on a scale of 1 to 10
He doesn’t try to improve
He is constantly improving
He doesn’t see his tendency to fall as a problem or something to be solved.
He understands that it is an inescapable part of walking.
Walking=falling
Falling =walking.
He doesn’t judge how many times or which directions he falls or the frequency with which his butt hits the ground
he just begins to stand as soon as he falls.
As soon as he falls, he’s on his way to standing and walking again
He walks
he falls
He begins to stand
He doesn’t clean himself up or dust himself off
he just starts walking again.
Thank you Roman for your commitment to walking
thank you for your energy and tenacity
thank you for understanding and accepting so easily the nature of walking
and falling
When I see you doing this, I ask myself
why would I ever judge my falls when they are in fact my walking?
why would I even bother to dust myself off when I could be on my way to standing?
on my way to walking again
Why would I waste one second on judgement or sadness or concern?
There is more walking to do
—Julian Mocine-Mcqueen
Life Radio with Julian
Episode 8: Stories
Julian joined the show to talk about stories. Listen where you get your podcasts or link here at: LifeRadioPodcast.com.
Julian Mocine-Mcqueen
Julian Mocine-McQueen is an Oakland, CA native raised behind the redwood curtain of Humboldt County, and the co-founder and Training Director for the Million Person Project.
Prior to the Million Person Project, Julian was a founding team member of Van Jones's green economy organization, Green For All. He engaged thousands of young people in the climate movement, by organizing educational engagements on tour with Drake and Wiz Khalifa, and by organizing Green For All’s College Ambassador program, which cultivates environmental leaders at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
In 2015, Julian was recognized as one of "10 Leaders reshaping the Environmental movement by Huffington Post and was a member of the innaugral "Grist 50 Fixers" list. Julian and his Partner, Heather Box, were also recognized by Grist as one of 16 projects to watch in 2016. How Your Story Sets You Free is the first book written by Julian and Heather.
