If you’re like me and grew up in the 70’s and 80’s…you probably think that saying up there is a huge crock. If you grew up in Texas, you KNOW it’s a crock. Especially if your football team lost more than they won during your high school years and at least one of those losses was to your long-standing rivals on a nationally televised episode of 48 Hours – “Hometown U.S.A.”
As Gen Xers we were taught – if you don’t win, you lose.
I can still remember those chants today –
“We’re number one!
Can’t be number two!
We’re gonna beat the
Stuffin’ outta you!”
and
“That’s alright!
That’s okay!
We’re gonna beat
Them anyway!”
Our culture reinforces that belief. As much as we see to it that ‘everyone gets a trophy,’ or ‘don’t make someone feel bad for losing’…we are still all about that win.
I get caught up in that, still.
And the kicker is – I do it to myself.
I have a habit of creating goals and using a self-imposed measurement of success about reaching those goals. And most of the time, that measurement is something I’ve created utilizing societal standards of success in whatever realm – beauty, fitness, career, relationships, grief…
I thought I had learned my lesson when I gave up making New Year’s Resolutions. If I couldn’t keep them perfectly, it meant I failed. I lost. So, I’d give up completely and feel like a loser. I’d damage my self-efficacy, my self-image. My self-esteem took quite a beating because I invested a lot of my time and energy into self-loathing.
Then, one year, I thought – why do I do this to myself? I don’t want to feel bad about myself! I’m a pretty cool person. Why do I continue to do this to myself? So, I stopped making resolutions. And I started choosing a word that I wanted to define my year instead. Doing that gave me a lot more opportunities to be successful and contributed to a better sense of overall well-being.
I lost sight of that trick recently. I have quite a year in front of me filled with boating opportunities, cycling events, epic trail runs, and the NYC marathon. Now while I in no way entertain any delusions I might actually win any of these events, I have done all of these things at least once, some more than once. Therefore, I created certain personal goals as pertains to each one. (In other words, I declared I was going to kick ass.)
I should know by now how the universe feels about my self-declared kick assedness. It laughs. It laughs at my pathetic attempts at grandiose designs. Then it says, “Hold my beer,” while it rubs its hands and sends some kind of cannonball out into space to blow my ship out of the water.
This year I determined that I would not only make it through all three days of the Tri-State Trek, but I would also make it up John Street, a half mile hill at the end with a 13% grade. This was going to be my year.
I’m headed to Alaska at the end of the month and signed up to do a kayaking tour, convinced I’d be able to be condition my rowing enough to keep up no problem.
But then some issues I had been having with my shoulders and neck worsened. And the issue with my dominant arm kept getting worse. I’m in constant pain; my range of motion is severely limited; I can’t get comfortable at night, so I don’t sleep well. Life feels like a struggle, and the image of fulfilling those goals seem to be dissipating into so much mist. And I’ve been feeling pretty crappy about that, about myself. All because I had an image in my mind of how things were going to be…how they were going to go down.
And it is ridiculous for me to feel this way.
I needed to recalibrate my measurement of success. Which meant taking a long hard look at those goals again and thinking about what truly matters to me – again.
After we lost Charlie to ALS and after going through everything that entailed, my ideas about life – what it means, what I want… – all that changed. I didn’t want to feel like life was this never-ending struggle of futility – striving to attain some manufactured sense of achievement.
I wanted to look around and notice what was so amazing about life, about our world! I wanted to do even more of all the things and appreciate the wonder and beauty in just daily living. I wanted to always remember that who and how we love matters; how we show that love matters.
Just showing up for my people matters and giving them all the love and support I have to offer.
It’s not my accomplishments that matter…or what I have yet to attain. It is enough to be in love with all that I am, all that I have, and all that is put in front of my face. Every.single.day.
I may not get to go kayaking in Alaska, but I will still get to see some really amazing things and be around some truly amazing people who are all there for a truly amazing event.
I may not make it up John Street this year on my bike, but I still get to ride; and it’s a beautiful, tortuous, transcendent ride and I will be grateful for every mile that I’m able to pedal.
I may physically hurt, but I will hopefully heal, and I can handle the pain knowing the emotional pain so many people I know face on a daily basis is so much worse.
So, yeah, I guess I had to re-think what I thought about that saying.
It’s not about winning or losing. Heck, it’s not even about how I play the game, even.
It’s that I get to play the game at all.
And I’m so glad I get to play.