It started with running for student council and studying to be in the top 10%. It tumbled into 5am's at soup kitchens and gallivanting the country chasing new adventures. My secret addiction to busyness has rarely been anything but secret. In that way, I'm no different from 97% of Americans. But moving to New York has given me perspective that busyness and the obsession with achievement were killing the real me.
We live in a culture that measures our worth by the likes and milestones we are able to attain; we've known this from the time we were tiny, before even our Instagrams were born. To say that we are dying to be noticed is like saying that Shaq is fairly tall.
Like every youngster looking for where he fits in, I set out to prove myself by what I could do, titles I could earn, accolades I could receive, even when they came from zero talent, no hard work and without any actual excellence. I collected them just to prove that I could. The allure of golden plastic trophies often convinced me to try out for sports I should have only dreamed of joining. i.e. Basketball. Basketball. As in the sport that requires jumping. Mom let me try out any way. Bless her. But there was one sport the coach did let me join.
Between hip height to the time I stopped growing, I practiced and played tennis every chance I could get. My mom would drive me to lessons all around town from Centennial Sportsplex to Nashboro Village, Wildwood and every country club in between, chasing the best instructors and a slightly more accurate top spin. I ran suicides and did leg raises until I couldn’t breathe, or didn’t want to. I learned the dynamics of strategy, the value of mental strength, and how you can anticipate where a player will aim based on the direction of their feet. I played in tournament after tournament against some of the state’s top-ranked players. So as an 8th grader, I tried out for the high school tennis team.
In saying tryouts, I should clarify. All you had to do was show up while the coach practiced his golf swing in the field next to the courts. I became second seed to a senior who ran faux bases around the court every time he hit a ball over the fence. You don’t have to see our team photo, taken in the bed of someone’s pickup truck, to know that we were horrendous.
I found out the hard way, receiving awards and impressive remarks often becomes an addiction, a virtual enslavement of the mind. The more you do, the more you feel the need to do, to stay ahead of others and your past self. And when you're not doing, you feel worthless to the world. It's one thing to be build a resume to get into college or to get a good job, it's another thing to believe that resume gives you self-worth. We live as social profiles unable or unwilling to admit that Saturday night we did nothing. Looking back, tennis was trying to free me from those future expectations.
"Comparison is the thief of joy." -Theodore Roosevelt
I'll be honest in saying that this addiction to achievement has pushed me to places that I would have never voluntarily went. For the way in which I have been inspired by those around me in what they've been able to achieve, I am obnoxiously grateful. But in any way that these same social achievements make me feel less than, I've learned I have to let go of them. We have to be okay with our own stories of where we've been, of where we are. I don't regret any success mirage I've ever chased, but I think the last place tennis finishes and the heartaches have shaped me more.
We were both the team that everyone loved and hated to play. They loved it because of the automatic W. They hated it because it felt like beating a two-year-old at Scrabble. Everyone sort of loses.
On the rare occasion that we did win, people were known to cry. I was usually concerned for them as well. Especially when it was me crying. Our seasons were a beautiful dance of practice makes perfect always makes defeat. All the hard work that went into knowing we’d never be able to achieve our way to the top. But for the first time in my personal experience, the point seemed to be the work itself, rather than any accomplishment. It was about the team, doing the best we could.
It took me a while, but now all the practices, all the tournaments, all the matches, and even the sweat and tears, are some of my favorite memories. To remember how my parents’ faces lit up whenever I took the court - and just as much when the matches were over. They cheered when I played people worse than me, and they cheered when I played the best in state. They took me to practice when I had an important match coming up and when I had no matches planned at all. They played with me when we were on vacations and even put up with my overambitious temper every time my anti-competitive sister hit twelve straight winners.
I like to believe that this is one of the first times I learned how God must be. To know the score is love, forty and you’re down two sets to none, and yet there He is. Unconditionally supporting and encouraging and cheering for us no matter how good we know we aren’t.
If my mom were to read this, she’d likely say, “oh, you were better than you’re making it out to be.”
And I have a feeling that if we all sat down with God after the period of our lives when we felt the most shame, like the biggest failure and had the longest losing streak, He’d say the same thing.
You’re better than you’re making it out to be.