It’s been interesting to see the response to her loss. A lot of people had talked her up, like she was an undefeatable juggernaut, miles beyond anyone else she’d be competing against. Certainly, the .gifs of her earlier fights speak to her prowess, and the loss vs. Holm doesn’t seem to have been some lucky hit, it seems like she just got beat.

The response seems to be basically if Rousey isn’t invincible, she’s nothing. At least, that’s how what I’ve read seems. She lost, her air of undefeatability is gone, I guess the Rousey phenomenon is over.

And what it reminded me of was how it felt to be a kid who was considered “smart”, and how terrifying it was constantly to do something that’d forever demolish that image. Because the way people react is exactly that – you’re smart until you’re not and then you’re *never smart again*.

And this means that you end up becoming more conservative, more cautious, more and more terrified of doing something that’ll let people see that you’re human.

It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I finally realized that this was bullshit. That it’s okay to fail. That it’s often *good* to fail, because it means that you’re pushing yourself beyond your existing limits, and pushing yourself into places you don’t fully understand.

I don’t know how to do things differently for my kids. I was talking to a mom the other day, and she yelled to her young daughter, “Hey, stop picking your butt on the playground!” embarrassed. And I said, “Hey, look. She’s got all her clothes on. Seems like a win.” She joked that I clearly had low standards, but we got to talking. And we covered a bunch of ground, from how I hated MIT, and didn’t really care where my kids went to college as long as they found something they loved doing, and they retained a *love* of things, which I felt like the school system thoroughly beat out of me.

I think in the end, she thinks I’m a total weirdo slacker, but whatever.

But the point being, I want my kids to get beaten up and then get back up and keep fighting. I want them not to give a shit about their record. I want them to face tough obstacles not because they know they can beat them but because they’re not sure they can.

And when they get beat up, and they lose, to know that I don’t think any less of them at all.

And I kinda wish that more stuff was like that – where it isn’t about the record, and it isn’t about the image, but it’s about the fight, and the willingness to get back up and try again, and again, and again.