Smaller

I spoke with an experienced swim coach in the area about training Peeved.  We talked for a while.  The conversation ended with the coach cautioning me not to “burn her out,” meaning I should be careful not to let Peeved do too much in any one sport, for fear she would come to hate it.  

I put both hands up in the stop position; closed my eyes, and lowered my head.  It was like she shot me.

What does it mean to be burned out...with regard to a sport.  Well.  I believe I know.  But, it isn’t just what you might think.  It isn’t as straightforward as saying, “I don’t want to swim ever again.”

For me, with competing in track and field until I was 23, it was more about how enormous you become inside of such a small sphere.

You think I am talking about steroids?

No.  I am talking about ego.

Being a scholarship athlete was about being in an imagined spotlight; having something very particular expected of you, feeling like you couldn’t and shouldn’t fail, and defining success as improving and winning.

Emphasis here is on “having something very particular expected of you,” which means repetition...and – in most cases- it is repetition externally assigned and enforced.  You submit to someone else, someone who is shaping you to perform a very specific task, with the goal of performing that particular task better than anyone else.

And, on top of all that repetition and subjection,

it isn’t fun to run until you puke either.  

But, the puking stops when the running stops. 

But, it is the collateral damage that gets you in the end, and I don’t mean bad knees.

For years after my track career ended, I had to remind myself that not everything was a contest.  I had to remind myself that there were not people in bleachers watching.  I had to remind myself that I was faceless, nameless, and potentially aimless.

Aimless...because as an athlete, you have a very particular task each day:  to train and to compete.  You can pick up anything – a banana – and you will say, “How does this impact my training?”  You will look at a calendar, see an upcoming event, “Can I do that without impacting my training...my competing?”

Once you take away that aim...the aim to be the best in your sport...it becomes confusing as to what you should be doing at all.  And, once you take away the contest aspect....then take away the spectators, people with expectations for you, and...don’t forget...you lose the repetition and the powerlessness...

well, it can take years to figure out how to proceed...on your own.

But, I know what you are thinking.  You are thinking, “That’s all good stuff...

I mean, you just go into your chosen field of employment, and you listen to your boss, and you shine, and you make a name for yourself, and you focus, and you set goals and achieve them.  It all transfers!  Life is a game!”

No.  It is deeper than that.

See.  I DID do that.  I went into teaching.  I wanted to be the best teacher.  I wanted to win awards and pay close attention to our principal.  I wanted to focus...hold up a banana and think, “How does this impact my teaching?”

The parents of the kids I taught, they were the people in the bleachers!  They were watching me...cheering me on....  “Yay!  Go!”

But.  Nope.

The stakes in Real Life are much higher and the chances of failing are way greater and more varied.  The job is not so specific. The losing is not so specific.

In fact, it is not a win/lose experience once off the track.  Sometimes, when you are losing, you are winning.  Sometimes, when you are winning, you are losing.

It - life -  has layers and folds and curves...and it is not just up and up and up.  It is fall way down, get off track, and then slingshot.

But, most of all, more than anything else, and this is where I pound my fist on the desk:

LIFE is not about YOU, at all.

So, that “ego” you built...that “The Best” thing you drove around...

not very attractive,

unless you are the athlete.

Meekness.

Humility.

For any athlete who spent years listening to headphones while pacing back and forth on the field like a caged cheetah...engaging feelings of superiority and drumming up motivation to dig deep into your physical abilities and pull out a greater physical feat...

Meekness and Humility were not really part of the equation.

You were trying to be Larger.

You were trying to be LARGER.

You wanted to go across the finish line FIRST.

You wanted to bang your chest and think and feel and maybe even scream, "I AM #1!"

There is no “other guy” about that.  Sure, there is sportsmanship, where you shake the loser’s hand.  But, that is not wanting the other guy to win.  You want to win.  You want to be LARGER.   You want to be the best.

THE BEST.

THE BIGGEST.

There comes a time in your life, when you realize, you need to be smaller.

You want to be the least.

You should want to be the LEAST.

Smaller.

Smaller still.

Smaller than that.

Maybe even...invisible.

You want to walk in a room and go unnoticed.  You want to slip into a room.   You want to be faceless.  You want to be nameless.  You want to be a silent servant.

There is a vast canyon between the pacing cheetah and the silent servant.

And so, when I am told by an experienced coach not to “burn her out,” with regard to my daughter’s athletic career...

I do not think about avoiding her premature disdain for swimming,

I am thinking about how to keep her ego in check, about how to make her more than a machine in the pool, and about how to teach her to soar, while also teaching her to be smaller...

Smaller still...

Smaller than that...

A silent servant.

Soar silent servant.

THAT is not easy.