How to be a Champion Even When You Lose

A healthy dose of competition goes a long way.  I think for many people, it works as a motivator to do one's best at whatever endeavor they engage in.  In addition, it adds an element of thrill or excitement to see who will come out on top.  It lets people dance with the fear of losing or coming in second place to push them to become more emotionally invested in what they are trying to achieve.  At it's most basic incarnation, it provides tangible proof that out of a field of rivals, one person is the best. Besides those things, winning feels good.  It's nice to be able to say, I gave it my all and I prevailed.

Unfortunately, it also has a down side.  For some people, winning can become everything.  It morphs into the sole validation for one's worth and value.   When this happens, people can become ruthless, calculating, and obnoxious.  Unless a person has a healthy relationship with and an attitude towards competition, being competitive can cause more heartbreak than satisfaction. It is essential to have the right perspective about winning, losing, and trying one's best.

It's funny how life cycles through themes, but this week's theme seems to be about competition. Through conversations with my children and friends, the topic keeps popping up in one form or another. It's made me think more about it lately than I have in a long while. Somewhere along the line, the need to win fell way back on my list of priorities. I used to be incredibly competitive about most things.  I wanted to be at the top of whatever I did. I won a lot of the time due to hard work and effort, but I lost frequently too.  I used to get so upset when I lost--tears, doubt, anger--the whole nine yards. Thankfully, as I've aged, life became much more about the journey than the destination for me and constant competitiveness fell by the wayside.

My daughter who is fifteen and has a similar competitive streak as I did at that age recently auditioned for section leader for the band.  She practiced not only her music on a daily basis, but spent hours writing and reviewing her interview questions.  She has innate talent, but more importantly, she has a solid work ethic, especially when it comes to achieving goals for herself.  Even with all her preparation and her confidence that she was going to perform at her greatest ability, she was prepared to lose gracefully.  And that makes me very proud of her.

Some people might question why I would be proud of her to be prepared to lose. There is a school of thought that believes if a person makes room for the idea of losing, they have already lost.  They believe that winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. I thoroughly disagree.  I think evaluating what it might be like to win and to lose before it ever happens let's a person focus more on the experience than the objective and to frame how they will react to both outcomes.  It makes you a winner at life, not just that particular test of skill.

Since they were very young, all of  my children know that sometimes you just don't win, no matter how hard you try.  No matter how talented a person is, someone out there could be better.  The only thing to do is to give 100 percent of what they can do and wait for the results.  Win or lose, if they did their best they could be proud. I wanted them to know early on that it is the effort that matters most, not the achievement.  I want them to be champions at life, not just soccer, or band, or school work. Learning to be resilient in the face of defeat, gracious in both winning and losing, and confident in their attempts means more to me than any trophy, position, or grade.  Winning is nice, but it isn't everything.  Learning from your mistakes, acknowledging and appreciating skill or talent beyond your own, motivating yourself to work harder and smarter for the next test of skill, and being completely present in the moment no  matter how painful it might be are all much more important than winning.

As section leader next school year, I know my daughter will continue to strive for excellence because it is something she wants to do for herself and for her band family, not solely for external validation. She will still be competitive, but mostly with herself, I am sure.  Just like her Momma, she wants to be a little bit better tomorrow than she was today, and frankly that's the most productive and fruitful kind of competition of all.

Making Room

I've been thinking a lot lately about the people who populate one's life.  Some arrive on purpose and others just pop up seemingly out of nowhere.  How a person comes to you is pretty easily answered-either you made the effort to place them there or they randomly fell in through circumstance. The real question I think most people have, however, is who stays and who goes and why that is.  I like to think that we have some modicum of control over who sticks around, and oftentimes we do, but my experience seems to validate the idea that fate really plays a major role in this arena.  

A person can behave in such a way to either keep or chase off people.  He or she can be abrupt or warm, insulting or complimentary, thoroughly disengaged or actively participating in a relationship. How we behave and what we say and do has an impact on who remains and who leaves.  But then, every now and again, people disappear for no reason at all or someone who was gone returns.  It seems as if the Universe has an agenda or timeline and just does what it sees fit to do in regard to who shares your life. 

Sometimes I feel as if I can actually sense the Universe pulling people out of my life.  The past twelve months seemed like a year of goodbyes.  The harder I tried to hold onto things and people who were important to me, the more I could feel the bonds.stretch and tear.  It was an uncomfortable feeling.  Painful, even.  It left me doubting myself, wondering what was so wrong with me that people didn't want me in their lives.  And then, somewhere during those months of feeling abandoned and bereft, I realized that I didn't have to think of this cycle in my life negatively.  I likened the process to spring cleaning-getting rid of the old, worn out aspects of my life and making room for the new.  Holding onto anything or anyone that doesn't readily want to stay or that serves no meaningful purpose only makes it more difficult to jump forward into something better, healthier, and happier.

It's inexplicable, but when I transitioned to actively thinking of the goodbyes as necessary and well-intentioned, I not only felt more free and at peace, but some people came back.  People whom I thought were gone forever returned to me. When I let go and truly meant it, wishing them well, they appeared again.  Others stayed gone, and in retrospect, I see how good that was for me.  Some people are only meant to be there for a short time until the lesson is learned.  Some stay forever.  And some thought to be lost and never to return show up again as if it were meant to be. The relationships and friendships may not be the same incarnations as before, but often they are better for having had the distance and separation.  Like an artist or an author who returns to a piece after leaving it alone, you see it with new eyes and a sense of depth that did not exist before.  There can be new levels of appreciation and understanding which makes for more enriching experiences.

I've seen this phenomena in not only my life, but in others as well.  I have one friend in particular who is where I was last year, holding on and stuck in a cycle of hellos and goodbyes.  It's taking its toll and all I want to do is have her let go, to be unafraid, and to see what the Universe has in store. Like most things, it is easier said than done.  Nevertheless, I still hold hope in my heart that she reaches the spring cleaning stage in her life.  When she does, I think she will learn to not have too many expectations for who stays and who goes.  It took me awhile, but I now know that the only thing I can really do is be me and listen to my intuition. I need let go when everything is telling me that is what must happen and to be unafraid to embrace the room made for the new.  I'm looking forward to seeing what happens and how that increased room will be filled.

You Can't Suck Forever: Getting Back Into the Writing Game

It's been more than two years since I wrote anything for this blog.  I have thought about it several times, but I each time I did, I felt as if I had nothing to contribute, nothing to say that had interest or value.  More so than anything, I think  my creative energies focused on fitting back into the working world by returning to teaching after an extended break, and figuring out how to balance home and job in the best way possible.  

I also had to find out who I was again, in the context of myself.  I had been solely Momma for six years and I needed to rediscover exactly who Melanie was.  I'm still working on it, and still surprising myself on occasion when I find a new facet of who I am.  The itch to write, however, has been resurfacing lately and getting harder and harder to ignore.  I feel rusty at it, but like I tell my students and my own children, the best solution for almost any problem is action.  You'll never know if you don't try.  So please forgive this attempt if it falls short, but getting back into the regular writing game is going to take some practice. It's kind of scary because I am used to being good at putting words together, to conveying a message.  I hate not being good at something I care about.  Nevertheless, I need to just suck it up and jump back into writing, even if  takes several attempts to get back to being coherent and well-written. As a friend of mine told me once when I was lamenting about using technology in the class room and my fear of screwing up, "You just need to go ahead and do it.  You can't suck at it forever."

I just finished my third year as a social studies teacher for a small alternative high school, and for the most part, I have enjoyed every minute of it.  In addition to teaching several different courses and sponsoring clubs and classes, I jumped into becoming a member of the teacher's union. With both endeavors, I discovered that as I have aged my voice has become clearer and stronger.  Initially I worried that my break from teaching had caused me to lose my ability to teach well, to lose my sharpness and skill. However, I was very pleasantly surprised that my confidence regarding my skills and contributions became more solidified.  I actually think I am a better teacher now than I was when I worked for 11 years straight.  Taking that time to be a stay-at-home mother, facing financial difficulties, living through some very challenging personal issues, and having time to reflect and explore what's important in this life  gave me a better perspective on all different kinds of people, especially young people.  I think I am better able to empathize with students and the issues they bring with them to school because I have faced some of those issues first-hand.  Taking that time helped to clarify a lot of my ideas about what is important in teaching, and even though I had to play a lot of catch up with pedagogy and the best practices, I am a better teacher than I was before.  I am better a person than I was before, and I am fortunate that I can bring my improved self to the class room and share it with students.

I am at a point where I feel pretty balanced and centered in my life.  I think that's why I want to write again.  I don't know if I have anything of merit to say, but that's not really the point anyway.  It's a creative outlet and I have both the desire and the room for it again.  That makes me happy.  So, I am going to pursue it.  I am going to enjoy it, work at it, and get better at it.  It feels good to be back.