Spider-Man Love

Willa: “Mom, write a blog post about Spider-Man.”
Me: “What about Spider-Man? Anything in particular?”
W: “Just Spider-Man love.”
Me: “OK…”

Spider-Man Love

So, I’m writing a post about Spider-Man love. Apparently it’s a new thing here. We have exactly no Spider-Man toys of any kind, but we watched Spider-Man, Into The Spider-Verse over the weekend so I suppose Spider-Man is on the mind. 

In honor of this, I bought Spider-Man Valentine’s Day cards for Willa to give to her class next month. She had a dinosaur birthday, Hot Wheels Christmas, so why not Spider-Man Valentine’s Day?

Spider-Man Love Party

Since we have no Spider-man toys or clothes or anything, we made our own drawings. We have zero drawing skills at our house, but we had fun trying. Thank you, YouTube, for the fun How To Draw Spider-Man tutorials!

We also did the underpants on your face Spider-Man mask thing but Willa wasn’t having it. Darn it, that’s always fun! We’ll show her the way soon enough…

So, how can I tie this in with the overall themes of my blog?

Like this…

Rising Up

Peter Parker was an unsuspecting teen, minding his own business, when a radioactive spider bit him, forever changing his life. He suddenly had strange abilities – climbing walls, superhuman strength and agility, and Spidey-sense. Already down on his luck in life (his parents died in a plane crash), he could have easily gone bonkers in the wrong direction with all of these new powers. But instead, he heeded the advice of his uncle, that “with great power there must also come great responsibility.” And so he rises to the level of his gifts and becomes a heroic vigilante.

Let’s apply it to our own lives.

How do we accept life’s curveballs?

Like that? Do we move with them and make the very best of them? Or do we fight and resist them? Life throws us the crazy and unexpected all the time, things we have no power over – so what’s the point in fighting?

You Control What You Control

So make the very most of that part. From Ryan Holiday’s Daily Stoic Podcast, a talk he gave to the Cleveland Browns:

Everyone in this room controls one thing. They control how they play. You don’t control what your teammates do, you control how you play. You don’t control what they say about you on Twitter, you control how you play. You don’t control the size of your contract, you control how you play. You don’t control what they say about you from the stands, you control how you play. You don’t control what the ref says, you control how you play. You don’t control whether it’s snowing, you don’t control whether it’s raining, you don’t control whether it’s a hundred degrees, you control how you play. You don’t control whether your teammates get hurt, you don’t control if your teammates are fair, you don’t control if the guy in the position ahead of you wants to groom you and mentor you or not, you control how you play. You don’t control whether your opponents cheat, you control how you play. You don’t control if your coach is a bully and he screams at you, you control how you play. You don’t control if people are doubting you, if they don’t believe in you, you control how you play. You don’t control yesterday’s game, you control how you play today. You don’t control if you’ve lost to this team a thousand times, you control how you play. You don’t control if your team wins, you control how you play. You don’t control if you lose, you control how you play. All you control, if it’s not clear enough, is how you play, right now, right this second. Whether there’s doubters, whether you’re being adored, all you control is how you play. The effort that you bring, the decisions you make, the principles by which you operate. And that’s ultimately all you can judge yourself on. You don’t control the outcome, you don’t control the facts, you don’t control anything but how you play. But, if we can focus on this, the Stoics said, if we can focus exclusively on what we control, we will not only be happier, we’ll have way more energy, and way more focus on what is in front of us while everyone else wastes time whining about, complaining about, worrying about, thinking about, bragging about what they don’t control. 

Maybe we can all take a page from Spider-Man and the Stoics and show up fully with what we do have control over, and do our very best. The rest? See it for what it is, dance with it, and then let it go.

If you have landed on this page from an external link, please go HERE to read from the beginning. Otherwise, click on the next title below to continue.