Was re-watching General McCraven’s 2014 University Of Texas commencement speech the other day that lays out 10 things we can all do to help change the world…
The General spoke of the time he was in Seal training and they would have uniform inspection… The shirts and pants needed to be spotless, pressed and worn in a specific and exact way. The belt and shoes, of course, needed to be shined to absolute perfection.
As hard as the General or some of the other Seal trainees at the time would try to get the uniform perfect and pass inspection, somebody would always fail and end up as a sugar cookie.
The making of a sugar cookie happens when the trainee does not pass inspection and must go into the ocean in full uni and then they are forced to roll around in the sand. Worse off, the trainee must wear his cold, wet and sandy uniform for the rest of the day.
Guys would complain because they often felt like they were unfairly targeted… They bitched that even when their uniform was absolutely perfect, they still could wind up as a sugar cookie. Of course, the people who complained didn’t get it because the point usually had nothing to do with how clean and perfectly put together the uniform was…
The real message that the Seal commanders were trying to send was that no matter what, life is not going to be fair and we are not always going to be treated the right way. Simply put, sometimes no matter how hard we try or how great of a job that we do, we are going to have to swallow our pride and set our egos aside because guess what????
We are all, at one point or another, going to be a sugar cookie. 🍪
Once we realize this, instead of spending our time and energy resenting anything and everyone, we will be able to suck it up and deal with whatever injustices are thrown our way. When we stop throwing the embarrassing self-pity party, we will finally be able to put all of our efforts toward doing the work that will inevitably allow us to continue to survive & thrive. 👊
-EB