Experience is the name every one gives to their Mistakes
I was disqualified from my very first race in my very first swim meet. The meet was at a local community college and though hell was still a bad word, I was nervous as hell. The night before the meet I kept trying to imagine myself successfully completing the race but instead I kept belly flopping the initial dive or being pulled to bottom of the pool by some mysterious force.
The race was a 50 yard breaststroke. At the sound of the whistle, I executed a beautiful dive into the pool. And then it began. Push the water away, breathe, hands at your chest, start the toad kick, hands back together, glide, repeat. So it went until I got to the wall, where I pushed off for the second lap. Halfway through the second lap, I was in the lead. And with the blink of an eye, I had completed the race and was drying off by the side of the pool. Brimming with pride, I went up to the stands to meet my coach.
In my mind, she was being surprisingly cold towards someone who had just destroyed a race. And soon I would find out that it was I who had been destroyed. After several moments of silence (that felt like several more moments of silence), she looked at me and sort of rubbed my shoulder in a manner that seemed all too patronizing to be done to a winner. Go on, say it. I'm so proud of you! You won your first race! "I'm sorry but you got a DQ." I suddenly felt that the mysterious force from my nightmare had come to life. It was drowning me. I was shocked. I had been disqualified. It sounded like the worst thing that could ever possibly happen to a person. She might has well had told me I was being tried for the death penalty. "How many times have I told you guys that in breaststroke, both hands must touch the wall simultaneously between laps and at finish." I was silent. Here I had been worrying about drowning and belly flops, that form and regulations seemed so...Mickey Mouse.
Though my coach made the carbon copy of my DQ into a ribbon and put a smiley face on it, all I wanted to do was go home and forget the day had ever happened. And here I am, 13 years later, with the day still etched in my memory as if it were yesterday...or maybe even today.
It's probably some sort of heuristic or another, but I always find myself remembering mistakes more than successful first attempts. But it's rare that I repeatedly make the same mistake. Mistakes help me learn, and I come back with twice as much determination and resolve the second time around. It's when you mess up that quiz on Chapter 17 that you study your little behind off for that Chapter 17 exam.
Today, we put so much pressure on ourselves, like telling ourselves that an exam will "make or break" our grade or that an interview will "determine" our future, that we forget how making a mistake could actually make it an experience. We harp on the mistake or think of all the other factors that could have been involved and can be blamed for the mistake. And in the end, our biggest mistake is that we don't acknowledge a mistake as our own.
I strongly believe that mistakes allow us to grow as people. Now don't think I go around trying to make mistakes so that I can grow. Believe me, enough mistakes come to me naturally, but as my dad used to ask me during my semester of the dreaded Economics 212, "Okay, you made mistakes. But did you learn?"
Today I hopped into the pool to do some recreational laps. There was no start-whistle, no audience. And yet, every time I got to a wall, both my hands were simultaneously touching down.
The race was a 50 yard breaststroke. At the sound of the whistle, I executed a beautiful dive into the pool. And then it began. Push the water away, breathe, hands at your chest, start the toad kick, hands back together, glide, repeat. So it went until I got to the wall, where I pushed off for the second lap. Halfway through the second lap, I was in the lead. And with the blink of an eye, I had completed the race and was drying off by the side of the pool. Brimming with pride, I went up to the stands to meet my coach.
In my mind, she was being surprisingly cold towards someone who had just destroyed a race. And soon I would find out that it was I who had been destroyed. After several moments of silence (that felt like several more moments of silence), she looked at me and sort of rubbed my shoulder in a manner that seemed all too patronizing to be done to a winner. Go on, say it. I'm so proud of you! You won your first race! "I'm sorry but you got a DQ." I suddenly felt that the mysterious force from my nightmare had come to life. It was drowning me. I was shocked. I had been disqualified. It sounded like the worst thing that could ever possibly happen to a person. She might has well had told me I was being tried for the death penalty. "How many times have I told you guys that in breaststroke, both hands must touch the wall simultaneously between laps and at finish." I was silent. Here I had been worrying about drowning and belly flops, that form and regulations seemed so...Mickey Mouse.
Though my coach made the carbon copy of my DQ into a ribbon and put a smiley face on it, all I wanted to do was go home and forget the day had ever happened. And here I am, 13 years later, with the day still etched in my memory as if it were yesterday...or maybe even today.
It's probably some sort of heuristic or another, but I always find myself remembering mistakes more than successful first attempts. But it's rare that I repeatedly make the same mistake. Mistakes help me learn, and I come back with twice as much determination and resolve the second time around. It's when you mess up that quiz on Chapter 17 that you study your little behind off for that Chapter 17 exam.
Today, we put so much pressure on ourselves, like telling ourselves that an exam will "make or break" our grade or that an interview will "determine" our future, that we forget how making a mistake could actually make it an experience. We harp on the mistake or think of all the other factors that could have been involved and can be blamed for the mistake. And in the end, our biggest mistake is that we don't acknowledge a mistake as our own.
I strongly believe that mistakes allow us to grow as people. Now don't think I go around trying to make mistakes so that I can grow. Believe me, enough mistakes come to me naturally, but as my dad used to ask me during my semester of the dreaded Economics 212, "Okay, you made mistakes. But did you learn?"
Today I hopped into the pool to do some recreational laps. There was no start-whistle, no audience. And yet, every time I got to a wall, both my hands were simultaneously touching down.
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