Did you watch Jordyn Wieber crying a few nights ago as her dream of competing for Olympic gold in the woman's gymnastics all around competition slid just out of her reach? It was heart breaking. The night was going to be heartbreaking for one of three really hard working, dedicated, sweet girls. There was no one on the team that the crowd was hoping would be the loser. It's a story without a villain.
It also turns out to be a story about real life. Life is heartbreaking and sometimes there are no villains. As I watched Jordyn trying to pull herself together I thought about all the hard work and sacrifice that she and her family and coaches had put into this one meet. I thought, "Damn. There sure are no guarantees in life." For a moment I too was caught up in Jordyn's despair and wondered if it was all worth it. Why go out every day and bust your butt when you never know if it's going to pay off? I went from thinking about gymnastics to thinking about teaching in about two seconds. There is no guarantee that any of my students are going to amount to anything in life, heck, they might not even survive to adulthood in some cases. If they do grow up and are successful, there are no guarantees that they'll use their powers for good and not for evil. Why do we even bother Jordyn? We can do everything right and still have an epic fail.
I sat on my couch and stared a while longer, fortunately, because as I sat there I realized why you pour your heart and soul into whatever passion moves you. Getting up every day and going out to do the hard work is the only way to even have a shot at success. Even if that success isn't guaranteed, it is exhilarating to work hard and push for something that really matters to you. The stretching, the strengthening, the learning something new, the bends in road, are all energizing in and of themselves. A worthy effort doesn't require success to have been worth the effort; the journey itself is pretty satisfying.
And when the moment of failure comes, as it must come to everyone who makes a risky reach of any sort, the only way to survive that failure is to know that you made every effort, you did everything you could have done, and you went all out in the pursuit. It feels horrible when your story takes a heartbreaking turn. It's tempting to despair and to rail against the villains, and sometimes it seems like you won't even be able to continue. It seems possible, however, that the more epic the failure, the more likely it is that the hero has what it will take to climb back, the willingness to do it all right again the next day, just for the joy of doing it.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Better Advice
It might be a bit arrogant of me to claim that I'm about to give you better advice, but as they say, "It's not bragging if it's true!"
My friend Erin is expecting her second child. Her oldest child is in the neighborhood of two. I was thinking of my own time as the parent of a newborn and a two year old the other day when I was recommending picture books for her to read to her little guy. Erin, I have so much more to recommend to you than picture books!
Let me start by saying that when you feel exhausted, please do not reach out and slap the person who says, "Enjoy them while they're young! It goes so fast!" Also, please do not reach down the throat of the person who says, "You think it's tough now? Wait 'til they're teenagers!" It's tempting, I know. You might also be tempted to feel guilty about not enjoying every second of your children's idyllic childhood, but you should also resist that temptation. I don't know what possesses people to say either of these things or any of the many similar sentiments. While it's true that the years fly by, it is in no way helpful to the exhausted mom of small, screaming children to be told that she should be enjoying this. I think it would be much smarter to say, "Can I get you a latte? You've earned it!"
I would also throw out this advice- you need a break. In order to love what you're doing, you have to be well rested. I don't care how great anything is, food, music, art, movies, creation, whatever, if you're exhausted, how the heck are you supposed to enjoy it? So Erin, back to those book recommendations I made earlier; (I recommended anything by Janelle Cannon or Margie Palatini, in case you were wondering.) I have a part two to those recommendations.
First, once you get that newborn settled into your house a little bit, change your older child's schedule to fit the baby. It won't kill him to be flexible and his wife might thank you for it some day. One way to get that schedule to fit the baby is by reading. (It's a twofer!) Get everyone fed and changed as needed (no small feat in and of itself, I know.) and then settle in with a stack of books and both kiddos. Keep reading until that baby falls asleep. Then EVERYONE to their beds, including you! Do not clean, launder, cook, check on, or fix anything. Go take a nap and lose the guilt. I'm serious. You might even have enough energy after that nap to have adult conversation with your husband past eight o'clock.
Second trick- books on tape. At about two and a half my son decided that he could get by on a 45 minute nap. Since his sister thought she should still eat at 2:00 a.m., a 45 minute nap was not going to cut it for Mom. What to do? Books on tape to the rescue. I set the two year old up with a little tape player a nice long picture book with accompanying tape. I got it all rolling for him, along with the instruction to go to sleep when the tape ended. Then I rushed off to lay down and was able to get an extra 20 minutes of sleep in. I started having books on tape to listen to in the car and when I needed to cook dinner too. You think your two year old can't sit for books on tape? I bet he can- if my little monkey can, yours can too.
The truth is, that with some decent rest I was so much more able to "enjoy them while they're young!" I still think it's a really unhelpful thing to say, but at least I was rested enough to be patient with people who were dealing with their own regret by shoving it on me.
My friend Erin is expecting her second child. Her oldest child is in the neighborhood of two. I was thinking of my own time as the parent of a newborn and a two year old the other day when I was recommending picture books for her to read to her little guy. Erin, I have so much more to recommend to you than picture books!
Let me start by saying that when you feel exhausted, please do not reach out and slap the person who says, "Enjoy them while they're young! It goes so fast!" Also, please do not reach down the throat of the person who says, "You think it's tough now? Wait 'til they're teenagers!" It's tempting, I know. You might also be tempted to feel guilty about not enjoying every second of your children's idyllic childhood, but you should also resist that temptation. I don't know what possesses people to say either of these things or any of the many similar sentiments. While it's true that the years fly by, it is in no way helpful to the exhausted mom of small, screaming children to be told that she should be enjoying this. I think it would be much smarter to say, "Can I get you a latte? You've earned it!"
I would also throw out this advice- you need a break. In order to love what you're doing, you have to be well rested. I don't care how great anything is, food, music, art, movies, creation, whatever, if you're exhausted, how the heck are you supposed to enjoy it? So Erin, back to those book recommendations I made earlier; (I recommended anything by Janelle Cannon or Margie Palatini, in case you were wondering.) I have a part two to those recommendations.
First, once you get that newborn settled into your house a little bit, change your older child's schedule to fit the baby. It won't kill him to be flexible and his wife might thank you for it some day. One way to get that schedule to fit the baby is by reading. (It's a twofer!) Get everyone fed and changed as needed (no small feat in and of itself, I know.) and then settle in with a stack of books and both kiddos. Keep reading until that baby falls asleep. Then EVERYONE to their beds, including you! Do not clean, launder, cook, check on, or fix anything. Go take a nap and lose the guilt. I'm serious. You might even have enough energy after that nap to have adult conversation with your husband past eight o'clock.
Second trick- books on tape. At about two and a half my son decided that he could get by on a 45 minute nap. Since his sister thought she should still eat at 2:00 a.m., a 45 minute nap was not going to cut it for Mom. What to do? Books on tape to the rescue. I set the two year old up with a little tape player a nice long picture book with accompanying tape. I got it all rolling for him, along with the instruction to go to sleep when the tape ended. Then I rushed off to lay down and was able to get an extra 20 minutes of sleep in. I started having books on tape to listen to in the car and when I needed to cook dinner too. You think your two year old can't sit for books on tape? I bet he can- if my little monkey can, yours can too.
The truth is, that with some decent rest I was so much more able to "enjoy them while they're young!" I still think it's a really unhelpful thing to say, but at least I was rested enough to be patient with people who were dealing with their own regret by shoving it on me.
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