On Getting Over Ourselves.....

Clearly it's a Carolyn love-fest! This letter/chat topic is old (from 2003) but too good, and too important, I think, to pass up. I sort of want to scorn this person for being so crazed, but I can't, because s/he is nothing more than an exaggerated version of myself. I'm not "disgusted" with my life, nor am I "berating" myself, but still...the shoe fits, kind of. Graduation is in 4 weeks and suddenly we're all sort of panicking about what comes next. What if I don't achieve all the things I thought I would? What if I fail everyone by living a perfectly pleasant, decent, mediocre life, belying my Illinois Wesleyan/University of Michigan/Welzenbach/English honor society heritage of excellence???? Oh the horrors!

Carolyn's advice makes me feel like it's ok to sit and take a breath and look around, be thankful, happy, and content--even if it means I (we all) stop trying so hard for five minutes. Ahhhh.

Somewhere in Northern Virginia: Hi Carolyn! I'm an avid reader of your column, but I've always been afraid to submit a question--until now--and only because I'm at such a total loss. Over the past six months, I've been feeling completely and utterly disgusted about my life. Essentially, I have always been very driven and ambitious, usually just to appear "together" and perfect. I'm almost 24. I've held a lot of glamour jobs, but I've yet to find something I'm truly passionate about. I keep berating myself for not having achieved enough. For instance, I promised myself I'd write my first novel by 21. Haven't done it. I think about this constantly and beat myself up over it. I have a job at a well-respected media outlet, which people always think is awesome, but I feel stuck in a rut and I'm not making the most of the experience. I've lost all motivation, and I feel totally confused. My friends are off applying to grad schools and getting promotions, and I feel stagnant. Moreover, lately I have been taking this out on my boyfriend: I've been trying to run his life (researching grad school options for him, etc.) instead of focusing on mine, which I feel is a total mess. I was always proud of myself up until recently, and I have no clue how to emerge from this. Sorry for the long post, but I do hope you can get to it today online. Thanks so much.

Carolyn Hax: Afraid I'll bite you? Just don't be completely self-absorbed, and I won't.

Actually, you're cutting the self-absorbed thing a little close with your quest for the -est (smartest, brightest, richest, successfulest), but we'll call it appearance absorption and give it a pass, since you're only hurting yourself. In fact, I think your disgust should be redirected toward that--your need to flog yourself for absolutely no reason. Repeat, absolutely no reason.

You are not even 24. Some people don't find their passions till they're 60. Some people never find them, and eke out pretty decent lives for themselves. They work hard, at whatever, as long as it's toward the greater good, and they pay their taxes, and they're nice to the people who love them, and they take pleasure in whatever small things they take pleasure in.

So my advice is to relax, work hard at whatever you work at, and love the people who love you, and seek out some pleasure in life.

And if you can't put yourself into that mold because you think you're too good for it, then I will bite you.

I'm not surprised that many of us find our way INTO these positions....17-20 years of pushing, pushing, pushing at school, sports, drama, part-time jobs, full-time jobs, etc. can lead us to believe that if we're not always striving to be faster, better, fastest, best, that we're somehow selling ourselves short and failing everyone who ever believed in us. But if we don't find a way OUT of this thinking, we're only punishing ourselves. A roof over the head? Food on the table? Loving relationships? A sunny day? A cat wending its way between your feet? A good book? Your health, that of your family? It's easy to forget how valuable these things are. Life is good. Life goes on. Thank God.

On tinterhooks (is that the right phase?) (Aha: it is TENTERhooks)

Oooooooooh, I'm excited! It's Monday, which means Carolyn's column is "adapted from online discussion." Often these are less than thrilling to me because I've already READ the online discussion. However, in the column Carolyn spends more time on her response than in the chat, which requires a certain amount of instantaneous response, often introducing new ideas and resources, as well as re-phrasing and bringing in comments from others who participated in the chat and--here's hoping--wrote in afterwards!

Here's why we're hoping: today's column addresses the twin boys who don't like baseball, whom I wrote about with a a great deal of energy earlier this winter here and here. I don't know if I mentioned that when I submitted my letter to Carolyn, she responded by saying she appreciated the story and that it suited the topic well.

In today's column, Carolyn alone responded to the woman who wrote in. BUT! It is "to be continued" tomorrow....so maybe we'll get a mention! Fingers crossed.

**Update: sad day! The column is posted and I am not featured. Probably this is what I get for not being as concise and witty as those other chat participants. Oh well...maybe next time**

More thoughts: Quitters never Win?

I realize that my last post was from the perspective of a decided non-athlete, and I wanted to look at it more from the angle of people who DO like and ARE good at sports. (Of course, it's still filtered through my attitudes, but I can't help that....)

For example, SWK played soccer his whole life, and left the team before his senior year of high school. He was never getting played, and he wanted to spend his senior year not putting in all those hours for practice and workouts, and then sitting on the bench every game. It wasn't a self-righteous tantrum about not getting to play--the payoff was just no longer worth what he was putting into it, so he stopped and focused on other things (he was also first chair in his section in band, for example). He still loves soccer and plays with his friends and family every chance he gets.

For some--especially raised in team sport mentality--that would definitely seem like a bad-quit. He couldn't "stick it out" one more year to say that he finished? But what if he had--what would he have achieved? The right to say "I played soccer for four years in high school" instead of three years? A felt letter that would sit in a drawer, because he didn't have a jacket it sew it to? Wooo!

His brother, PWK, stayed with soccer through high school, and selected his college based on his plan to play on their soccer team. He ended up leaving the team his freshman year, but staying at that school. Turns out they don't offer the field he wants to study--now, he's about to graduate, and is considering starting over with another bachelor's at a new school to get into the field he wants.

Tunnel vision about any activity, and not placing into the larger context of your life, can sap your time (years of it) and energy, and paint you into a corner. This is absolutely not exclusive to sports, but it does seem to happen more often there than elsewhere.

I'm not suggesting you should only play sports if you know you're going to want to stick with it all the way and have a shot at going pro. On the contrary...I think you should play sports, as well as participate in any hobby or activity, as long as you're getting out of it at least as much as you're putting in, and it's enhancing, not hindering, the rest of your life. It's important to maintain the distance and objectivity to be able to step away from it when you cross that line.

O Brother, What Art Thou?

I started my Saturday by reading the transcript of Carolyn's live chat from yesterday. (Is there any other way to start the weekend than with a cup of coffee and an advice columnist chat transcript?)

The situation of a woman who wrote in really struck a chord with me. She had 10-year-old twin sons and it's time to decide whether or not to sign them up for baseball. They don't really like to play, she says, and show no interest in getting better. They'd rather not sign up, but their dad (who she admitted was not available to take an active role in getting them to practices, games, etc.) was insistent. The mom had mixed feelings...her biggest concern seemed to be that they'd be missing a lesson about "sticking with" things. She also said they like biking, swimming, kung fu, basketball...just not baseball.

This makes me nuts! If we had to "stick with" everything we ever tried indefinitely, I would be a dancer, baseball/softball player, gymnast, potter/artist, horseback rider, pianist, floor hockey player, black belt in karate, actress, choir member, badminton player, clarinetist AND saxophonist....etc.

Wait, scratch that. I would only be a dancer and a softball player, because those were the first two organized activities I ever tried, and there wouldn't have been room for anything else. A DANCER and a SOFTBALL PLAYER. Me. I would be miserable and not good at the activities that consumed my life--which is why I stopped doing them in the first place. Childhood and adolescence should be a time to try out a number of different skills, seeing what you're good at and what you like, and shaping yourself from there. You have to stick with it, sure...but it also has to stick a bit on its own. My brother and I always, always finished the season/session, but were never required to sign up again the next year.

(P.S., looking back at that list, it seems that I was quite a spaz. But it's not that I was signing up at random for particularly exclusive/expensive training in any of these things--horseback riding was probably the only one, and I'm grateful I had a shot to try it. Mostly they were park district things or school-sponsored activities I just wanted to find out more about, and enjoyed--but had no reason to commit to)

I did stick with band, writing, and major involvement in my church youth group and choir, and had a part-time job practically from the day I turned 16 (and stuck with the same one until I went to college, even working while home on break until the store where I worked closed). But enough about me--this issue resonated with me so much that I wanted to write in to Carolyn about it. I think my parents' flexibility in letting my brother and I choose our activities, experiment, and move in new directions was incredibly valuable. We learned self-discipline--we also learned to value our time and prioritize our passions, interests, obligations and choices because our schedules were not predetermined. So I wrote to Carolyn, in what ended up being an Ode to my Cool Brother. I think he and I did a lot of the same kind of things in terms of trying (and yes, quitting) different activities. But since the original chatter was asking about boys and about baseball, his life seemed to fit the situation better. So here's what I wrote to Carolyn:

Hi Carolyn and team,

The baseball twins from yesterday's chat remind me of my brother. When he was little he was in park district soccer and baseball and played on a church basketball team. He didn't really take to any of these things--never wanted go to practice, didn't show or develop much skill, and worst, just didn't enjoy the atmosphere of being on the team and playing the game. He was an anomaly among his friends because of this. [Forgot to include this to Carolyn, but he was also often frustrated and embarrassed. I have this really painful memory of his end-of-the-year soccer dinner where the coach played "we are the champions" on a boombox and each kid had to stand on a chair to be gazed upon, talked about by the coach, and receive a trophy. BJW either pouted through it, or hammed it up inappropriately, and got a "talking to" afterwards. Really he was just incredibly uncomfortable with the whole thing]. He got through the sports for a few years, and when he said he wanted to quit, my parents, despite possible reservations, let him make the call.

He, like the twins in the chat, took up karate and excelled at it for a number of years. He got involved in drama in junior high, and was basically the head of the tech department by his senior year of high school. He was still an anomaly, in that his individuality and creativity made him the rock star of his high school. He performed a killer Jimi Hendrix-style national anthem at the homecoming pep rally his senior year, and was voted prom king, despite (because of?) attending prom dressed as a pirate. He took up guitar lessons in third grade, with much discussion from my parents about the need to practice and stick with it. [another addendum: in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, he performed Beatles songs with three other kids in the elementary school talent show. They were always one of the few groups to actually play and sing, not just choreograph a kickline to the pop music of their choice]. Now at 22 he's a music composition major, teaches guitar to kids and adults (works 20+ hours a week while in school full time), and runs an amateur recording studio out of his living room.

If the issue is getting exercise, he doesn't "work out" or play sports, but he does walk several miles a day from the train station to his university (he commutes). If the issue is learning to work with a team, he did that with the tech crew, and still does with his job, where they all contribute to running a small, family-owned music shop (not our family, though he's become basically part of theirs). By nature he's more of an individual worker--so am I--but he's not incapable of working with others. There are many ways to achieve the ends of physical fitness and teamwork mindset.

It drives me nuts when parents define abandoning any sport or activity as "quitting." I think making it through the season and then opting not to do it again the next year is perfectly legitimate. Of course getting to the end of the season is important for all kinds of reasons--not letting down the team and coach by disappearing, not wasting money, and simply practicing self-discipline. But if signing up for something and giving it a fair shot isn't enough for us to make a decision about whether or not to continue, how will we ever find the time to try new things?

I think the worst possible consequence would be to teach your children to hang back from trying new sports, activities, clubs, etc. because they fear they won't be able to get out of it if they don't like it or don't have the skill.

Best,
Becky in Ann Arbor