Besting your PB is being the best

En route to school today, a little voice from the backseat informed me that Sammy had diverged from his usual early morning (he wakes up any time from 4.45 am onwards) iPad viewing of ‘all things wheeled’ and elected to watch Youtube clips of people running – “to help me get ready for sports day, Nana.”

Now those of you who are patient enough to follow my rather random ramblings might remember my post about Sammy’s sports day last year, when his performance may not have been an unmitigated success in terms of results but was an award-winning example of courage and perseverance. [http://wackyjacci.blogspot.co.za/2016/09/from-my-small-corner-when-courage-is.html]

With this year’s preeminent sporting event just a week away, training at 35 Lansdowne is at an all-time high. We run countless laps – the track has been extended to include the back garden this year – and weave our way through a complicated course of brightly-coloured cones, always taking care to avoid the inconveniently-placed sink hole in the middle of the front lawn. After all, it IS an obstacle race. My running style was sharply critiqued (“lift your KNEES, Nana!”) as I shuffled around the track after a long day at work last week and even my 81-year-old mother was put through her paces one afternoon. If preparation and passion were accurate predictors of success, Sam would have that podium finish in the bag.

And there’s the rub. As hard as one tries and as desperately as one wants it, there ARE no guarantees of winning – well, in a free and fair race, that is! And the interesting thing is that premier performers get that. I may have mentioned before that I am an avid arm-chair athletics enthusiast. I can appreciate the immense skill that goes into mastering ball-games such as tennis but to me, honing one’s body into a precision tool that obeys the will beyond physical boundaries is an almost-mystical feat and a thing of beauty to watch. And having watched for a number of years, I have been struck by how realistic most competitors are. Of course they aim to win – that ambition fuels the endless, gruelling hours of training - but those athletes know to the split second what their personal best is and it is really that which they are targeting as they thunder down the track towards the finish line. And so it is possible to finish fourth and be elated because you beat your PB… which is sort of what I tried to explain to young Samuel as we approached Livingstone Road.  But I think he had moved on and was practising counting to 100. Ah well. We still have just under a week to go, during which time I can only hope that this message will drop from his head into his heart. Or maybe past his ears and into his head. Realistic, that’s me.

But all that got me thinking. From our first breath we are either being compared to, or comparing ourselves with, the other competitors in the race of life. And somehow we have all bought into the ‘winner takes all, second is just first loser’ mindset that, ultimately, makes losers of us all. What if we embraced a whole new paradigm based on beating one’s personal best, rather than everyone else? What if we celebrated the achievement of every child who exceeds his own expectations and breaks his own record? It may be an unpopular truth but it is true nonetheless that we are not all born with the same measure of talent or given the same amount of opportunity. And the veracity of the popular mantra ‘if you can dream it, you can achieve it’ is, at best, questionable.  But we CAN be better than we were last season… last month…last week…yesterday. 

Let’s get real and reward realistically and equitably: to beat your PB IS the victory.  

Whose voice do you listen to?

I was playing with my grandchildren the other day, busily constructing Duplo accommodation for Lily’s animals and Sammy’s cars, when Sam held up the building he had just finished and announced in a gloomy tone worthy of Eeyore, “I’ve built this but Lily will laugh and say it is not good.”

Actually, it WAS good - particularly in view of Sammy’s proprioceptive challenges – which made his statement all the more troubling. Because what it showed me was that not only does Sammy hear his younger sister’s critical commentary, but that hers is the voice that he is listening to. And while we make every attempt to curb little Lily’s (unfortunately usually truthful, if somewhat unkind) observations about her brother’s efforts, we also ensure that our encouraging words of praise for persistence and progress outweigh hers in both number and noise. So why does he listen more to her occasional criticism than to our constant stream of affirmation?

And Sammy is not alone in this. While there are those blithe souls who appear to have bottomless wells of self-confidence (although I am sure even they have seasons of insecurity), most of us tend to pay a disproportionate amount of attention to negative input. Worse still, we allow it to shape how we see ourselves, which in time can lead to a self-fulfilling prophesy of under-performance.

I am not suggesting that all comparison is harmful or that we should expect our every effort to be applauded indiscriminately – that road leads to the demise of excellence and the rule of mediocrity. I am suggesting that we need to learn to be more discerning about whose voices we allow the most airtime in our heads. Of course, that requires us to have the innate confidence in our own worth to judge the validity of others’ evaluation of us and to turn a deaf ear to those voices that we decide are not speaking truth. Which is well-nigh impossible to achieve if we are relying on those same external voices to construct our self-worth and indeed, our identity.

I believe that we are tuning in to the wrong channel. Society sings the praises of sensational celebrities and conspicuous consumerism, promoting style over substance and charisma over character. And if one’s image is constantly under construction, how can one expect to build a solid identity? In a world addicted to overnight success stories, the winner takes it all…until he or she falls, to be trampled underfoot by the erstwhile adoring fans who take just as much delight in their idols’ demise as they did in their rise. The siren voices on this channel tell you that if you can dream it, you can be it – and then laugh raucously when you fail.

But there is another channel. It is sometimes hard to hear over the static but if you train your ear to listen, you will hear quiet, reassuring voices that tell you that you are worthwhile because of who you are, regardless of what you can do. That it doesn’t matter how many times you fall as long as you pick yourself up one more time and keep going. That determination and hard work are the foundation of lasting success. That integrity is the cement that holds your identity together. And that it is the kindness you show to those around you that makes your memory linger in their hearts, not how witty or wealthy you were.

And so our challenge is not only to help our children hear the right voices, but also to teach them to speak in them.

And where better to begin than with ourselves?

Moving from awareness to understanding - one giant step for me.

It seems that every month comes with at least one ‘awareness’ tag and one of the causes that is highlighted in April is Autism Awareness. With a view to raising autism awareness in Durban, local organisation Breakthrough Inventions (SA) organised its inaugural ‘The Blue and You Autism Run’ for Saturday 29^th April. Prospective entrants were thoughtfully offered the option of a 5km run/walk or a 10km run, but when the son-in-law (and father of our Sammy) succumbed to a rush of blood to the head and signed up for the 10km event, pride prevented one (being me) from doing any less ‘for the cause’. Ho hum. Contritionem praecedit superbia and all that.

Now, I used to run. Quite respectably, if I may say so. And while I never posed a threat to any speed or distance records, I wore out my share of running shoes on the tarmac. But the combination of a childhood spent in the ballet studio in the earnest pursuit of beautiful duck-feet and some twenty years of pounding pavements concentrating on leaving strictly parallel footprints took an inevitable toll on my hips and knees, with the result that while there may have been the odd sighting of me on the hoof in recent years, it has been observed – unkindly if accurately - that hippos wade through dense water hyacinth faster than I move, even when I am hitting the high notes on my Fitbit heart monitor. It might also be worth mentioning that I have embraced a whole new decade since I last ran a 10km event. 

However, I am nothing if not optimistic so I set about escalating my fitness programme from the occasional gentle 5km shuffle along the uMhlanga promenade to (fairly) frequent forays to the Palace of Active Virgins, where I could be found burning rubber on the treadmill for (relatively) prolonged periods.  The results were noteworthy. My Discovery points soared, as did the bank balance of my friendly physiotherapist. My fitness increased in direct proportion to the discomfort in my left knee…and hip… but hey, I grew up chanting ‘Go for the burn’ with Jane Fonda so I pressed on regardless. Qui non dolet non vincit or, to put it a tad more snappily, nil doloris, nil majoris.

A day or so before the Big Event, I limped off to the physio and emerged looking like King Tut’s mummy, my left leg encased in eye-wateringly purple spider tape. Okay, so I chose the colour but what can I say? Go big or go home. Anyway, I was as good to go as I would ever be.

Saturday 29^th dawned all good and clean and fresh but the tra la la was distinctly lacking in at least one of our party. I mean, the spirit was champing enthusiastically at the bit but the flesh was definitely dragging its heels. Particularly the left one. We arrived at the start with time to spare – enough time, it transpired, for the Other Half, who was present in his official role of chauffeur and cheerleader (and unofficial role of amateur paramedic), to fall prey to a fierce attack of FOMO that moved him to sign up to run the full distance in his civvies.  He was heard murmuring (more than once) about the inherent handicap of wearing heavy cargo shorts but the son-in-law and I, enveloped from neck to navel in exuberantly blue-and-orange sponsored race T-shirts that stridently promoted awareness of us, if not of autism, to all but the profoundly visually-challenged, turned a resolutely deaf ear.

The gun went pop and the modest field of 10km trotters set off towards Blue Lagoon, where we were to double back and pound along the Promenade past Sun Coast casino and beyond before turning back towards the start, at the home of the Natal Mounted Rifles. The course was flat and the going should have been easy – other than having to navigate the happy hordes of Park Runners whose awareness of our cause definitely extended to our water tables, upon which they came down like the legendary Assyrian. Before long the Other Half was just a dim silhouette in the distance, distinguishable only by his cargo shorts billowing bravely in the breeze as he dashed to cross the finish line first.  This did not surprise me but the son-in-law was also exhibiting some nifty ankle-work, which troubled me somewhat as, based on our training times, I had confidently expected to keep pace at the very least and perhaps even show him a clean pair of heels. But it was not to be. Instead, he kicked up his heels and left me trailing ignominiously in his wake.

I think I can fairly say that I have never experienced a more miserable run. Everything was wrong; the left side of my body felt weirdly disconnected from the right, with the result that I couldn’t find any rhythm in either pace or breathing. By the halfway mark, my left leg was responding sluggishly and discomfort had long since given way to outright pain. I seriously considered stopping but, apart from my celebrated strength of mind (certain ill-disposed persons have been known to call me stubborn), I was doing this for Sammy so bailing was not an option. And so it was that, as I grimly plodded along, frustration and humiliation jostling for the upper hand, I had one of those epiphany things that so many clever people claim inspired their world-changing discoveries. Like Archimedes when he was relaxing with his rubber duckies in the bath.

Perhaps my eureka moment wasn’t world-changing in the cosmic sense but it definitely changed my world because suddenly, I understood what life must be like for Sammy – not just when he is having a particularly bad day, as I was, but every day. Everything is always just that bit harder for him, from mastering physical challenges to making friends, while sensory discomfort and often-crippling anxiety are his constant companions. He often feels disconnected from the world in which he has to find his place – and giving up is not a long-term option in life’s race. No wonder he often explodes in angry frustration. No wonder he sometimes tells me that ‘God didn’t make me right’ and ‘I think I need a new brain’.

And so, while I was running to raise awareness of autism among the local population, I took a giant personal step from autism awareness towards understanding autism - and that, to quote Robert Frost, has made all the difference.

Lessons I have learned from six-year-old Sam

Happy birthday, Samuel Lewis McDowall (aka Sammy-boy, aka “I am kind of a SatNav” Sam)

Shortly after 8.30 am on 28^th February 2011 you made your debut amid a fever of excited anticipation: your parents’ firstborn child, our first grandchild, your maternal uncle’s first nephew (or niece, for that matter), our parents’ first great-grandchild. You were truly our Number 1 and we celebrated your arrival with grateful gladness. Yes, you were very small – a tiny scrap weighing less than 2.5 kg - but we all commented on how very active and what a ‘noticing’ baby you were; your little arms and legs were constantly moving and your bright blue eyes roved around as if taking detailed notes of your surroundings. We just knew you were going to be special… extraordinary! And we were right. You are extraordinarily special and you have already taught us a lifetime’s wisdom in our first 3 153 600 minutes (give or take a few) together.

So, on the eve of your sixth birthday, I thought I would write down just some of the things that I have learned from you:

·        *  Different is just…different. Not better, not worse, just different. I truly believe that if each of us stopped trying to make ourselves feel ‘better’ by stigmatizing those who are different from us as ‘worse’, the world would be a happier place. It’s as simple (and as difficult) as that.

·        * Our worth cannot be measured by external indicators. We don’t get to choose what we are born with, only what we do with what is placed in our hands. So my greatest achievement might look like your epic fail – should that determine our respective worth? I don’t think so.

·         * Never under-estimate the insight of the innocent. Child-like does not mean childish and simplicity does not mean the absence of smarts. Take it from one who has learned the hard way.

·         * Being patient and kind takes persistent practice. And if, at times, the best you can do is bite your lips to keep the barrage of angry, frustrated words from bursting forth to batter whoever is in your line of fire, that’s okay. In fact, that’s a really good place to start.

·         * Learn to listen more than you speak. And when words fail, listen with your eyes and your heart as well as your ears.

·         * Every day is a new day. Don’t let yesterday’s storm-clouds shadow today’s sunrise and don’t expect sunshine tomorrow just because the sky was clear today. By all means plan for the future but live fully in the present because there are no guarantees for tomorrow. You get just enough grace for each day. Don’t be afraid to use it up because you can’t carry it over from yesterday and you will get more tomorrow. Truly.

·         * Avoid making superficial, snap judgments. Take the time and trouble to listen, look and learn before making comments or offering advice because without understanding the background, it’s all too easy to misinterpret what is going on in the foreground. This doesn’t mean that one should never offer to help, but there is a world of hurt’s difference between ‘how can I help you?’ and ‘why don’t you?’ Of course, this goes both ways: it is not helpful to react defensively in the expectation of (yet another) judgmental comment.

·         * Don’t sweat the small stuff. Decide what is really ‘core’ and focus on that – for the rest, be flexible. Never give up or settle for less but don’t hitch yourself to unrealistic expectations, particularly others’ expectations.

·        *  Love is the key to all doors. But you have to be prepared to love unconditionally, not for what you want to get back. And learn to give and receive love in unexpected ways – outside of the movies and Hallmark cards, love seldom comes wrapped in shiny cellophane with pretty ribbons. Oh, and love DOES mean having to say you’re sorry – over and over again, because you’re not perfect, just someone doing the best you can. And when the best you could do at that moment was not good enough, you need to say so, honestly but without shame. That’s how mutual trust and respect is built.

·        *  Learn to look for the light in the darkness, laughter amidst the tears, and happiness in the heartache. It’s there, and all the more precious for being partially hidden. Okay, sometimes it is REALLY well hidden, but digging for it builds perseverance.

·         * And finally, hang onto hope. Hope is the rope that keeps you from stumbling and helps you to pull yourself back up when you fall.  You might need to make reality-adjustments to what you hope for, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up hoping. It’s ALWAYS too soon to give up hope.

     We have great hopes for you, Sammy – different from but far deeper than those shallow expectations we held onto so proudly the day you were born. I hope you will always know just how much we love you and that you will learn to love who you are and find others to love you as much as we do. I hope that you will continue to find your brave so that you can conquer your fears and reach for your dreams – whatever they are. I hope you will find your purpose and experience joy and fulfilment in whatever work your future holds for you. And most of all, I hope you find the security and serenity of faith in the One who made you quite extraordinarily special. 

   

     Love Nana