Do I Really Have Anything to Say?

When it comes to exercise, I’m not a complainer. I like the especially brutal workout, the beating one can take when pushing one’s body to its limit. That’s why I enjoyed Saturday morning so much and why I have kept exercising (almost) uninterrupted since I was about 17. Today, however, sucked. A short, 50-minute run turned into pure dread. Thoughts of an early turnaround entered my head. Granted, I didn’t turn around, but it was an “out and back” and I know I didn’t get “out” as far as I normally do in 25 minutes. My heart just wasn’t in it.

It got me to thinking, though: what kind of teaching opportunity is this for me to relay to my boys? They’re young now, but I see so much potential in them that I struggle with how hard to push and how much to let them steer. From my own experiences, I wish I was pushed more and earlier in sports. I was good – darned good – at some things and my parents let me do the one I wanted to do instead of keeping me in the one I was best at. Don’t get me wrong: I can appreciate why. Nobody wants their kid resenting them for making them play soccer forever, but how many kids (delusional or otherwise) are left wondering “what if” based on decisions like that?

I could have been really good at soccer. I have endurance. I’m coachable. I like team sports, playing within a system, and live for defense. Plus, let’s face it: I’m not tall, big, especially fast, or unusually strong. At best, I would probably have ended up in a college program somewhere but then I wonder, where would that have really gotten me?

So how do you know? What do you nurture and “push” without being THAT parent, who’s living their dreams through their kids?

It all comes down to love, I guess. Love of the game and love of your kids. If they love it, you support it because you love them. Do I have a collegiate swimmer on my hands? A chess champion? A Nobel laureate? Any would probably cause me to burst with pride to the point where I’d be insufferable.

Heck, I’d take a guy who runs his first marathon at middle age and has a bad run once in a while. As long as he’s happy.

Tags: kids, push, sports, struggle