Marching On

Since I've last posted (a long time ago, I know) there have been a lot of things I've wanted to write about but I can never put these things into words in a way that does justice to the complexity of my experience of them.  So to break my writer's block, I'm going back to my tried and true expression by quoting song lyrics. Thanks OneRepublic.

For those days we felt like a mistake,
Those times when love's what you hate,
Somehow,
We keep marching on.

We all have those days we feel like a lost cause, like all that we've done will never be enough.  We learn that passion and desire is nothing but painful.  Still, we can't help but make that same mistake of loving and want too much.

For those nights when I couldn't be there,
I've made it harder to know that you know,
That somehow,
We'll keep moving on.

I've certainly been here too.  Those times I kick myself for not saying the things I should.  I'm extremely reserved, most people call it shy, but think reserved sounds better.  Either way it disconnects me.  There are more nights than not that I kick myself for not making a critical connection and knowing that there is no truly acceptably reason I couldn't be there.

There's so many wars we fought,
There's so many things were not,
But with what we have,
I promise you that,
We're marching on,

You may not be reserved like I am.  But we all have our reason for not being who we want.  There are so many things we're not, but we have a lot more than we know.  There so many great things that make each of us who we are, that have gotten us to were we are, and that will keep us in the chase.

For all of the plans we've made,
There isn't a flag I'd wave,
Don't care if we bend,
I'd sink us to swim,
We're marching on,

This is by far my favorite verse.  For all of you that are graduating, or going though major life changes, losses, or failures, this attitude is everything.  You can't learn and thrive from floating along, you have sink to swim. Most things that scare you won't kill you, they force you to grow.  We often bite more than we can chew, but if we wait until we are ready to handle things comfortably we get left behind.

For those doubts that swirl all around us,
For those lives that tear at the seams,
We know,
We're not what we've seen,

For this dance we'll move with each other.
There ain't no other step than one foot,
Right in front of the other.

Everyone struggles with what direction to take with their life. Naturally, we doubt.  At the same time we fear where we are going, we fear, even more, standing still.  Our faith is drawn from one another.  We are never in it alone, everyone is moving forward the only way the know how.

We'll have the days we break,
And we'll have the scars to prove it,
We'll have the bonds that we save,
But we'll have the heart not to lose it.

For all of the times we've stopped,
For all of the things I'm not.

Over the past few months I've been finishing up graduate school, searching for employment, developing as a young coach, observing good friends chase goals, some successfully, others not as much.  I myself have done my share of chasing and failing.  There were times I "stopped."  Failure is paralyzing and it makes you realize how perfect you're not.  Through it all, I've been thinking about my future and the future of those around me, longing for a time when we feel settled when we can float for awhile, not sinking or swimming.  A time when every step doesn't have so much influence over the direction we're moving and the place we'll end up.  But I think this longing is naive.  No matter were you are in life each step makes a difference in where you end up, its just times like these when you're reminded how many paths there are and that we can change direction at moment.  This may sound crazy but knowing that inevitably "we'll have the days we break and the scares to prove it" is reassuring. The things and people I love the most are the ones that I've been through the worst with.  Its the disappointments, the scars, the bonds, that ultimately motivate us to strive for more, for different directions.  Goals won weaken the heart with complacency.  In the end the strength to get up and create bigger and better goals, to move, and to grow are born out of mistakes and obstacles.

Right, right, right, right left right,
Right, right, right, left, right,
Right, right,
We're marching on

For all those renewing the chase

Records Are Made To Be Broken

Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals.
~Fulton J. Sheen


I’m a competitive person. It may not always seem like it. Maybe I’m not outgoing or open enough for my competitive nature to stand out as one of my defining features but for better or worse I continually measure myself compared to others and I hate to lose. Much of the time this is good quality, it is something that motivates me to be the best person I can be. However, while competition may bring out the best in people, it also has the potential to bring out the worst. Some of the most damaging emotions stem from competitive pride; jealousy, resentment, fear, anger. There is a balance between using competition as a motivator and not letting it become about who wins and who loses. I know everyone can’t literally win but I stand by the notion from the Panther cheer “Clear Eyes Full Hearts Can’t Lose.”

An old friend of mine, Elizabeth Yetzer, writes a blog, and in it she recently posted about her roommate and how special their friendships is because they both genuinely rout for each other to succeed despite being really competitive. She writes, “It is so awesome to imagine that if we all really encourage others to be the best-version-of themselves, we will all play the role we are created for.”





I was reminded of this message this weekend while I was coaching at our indoor conference track and field meet. At big meets like this, records are in jeopardy, teams are pitted against teams, competitor against competitor, and often friend against friend. All too often all that separates one performance from another is a tenth or hundredth of a second, or a fraction of an inch. Yet we use the outcome to determine our worth. As an athlete I didn’t like to get to know my competition too well because it was more motivating for me to want to prove myself better than the vilified fictional version of them, than the real one which was certainly “worth” as much as if not more than myself. The game changes when you know the other peoples’ stories and the work do to be their best. You begin to relate to them and care about them…of course you still want to beat them, but it’s different, it’s weird.

It is weird coaching athletes who compete against my friends and former teammates from college. I want them all to be the best they can be but I don’t want them to have to beat up on my athletes to do it. Or even more selfishly, I don’t want their successes to have to overshadow my past success or erase the legacy that my team worked hard to leave. While all these complex emotions mixed together with the adrenaline and excitement of the competitive atmosphere I realized that a legacy by definition is a gift that is given and received. If you look at it in that way, great performances, and records and any other type of success are not really something you can pridefully own, you inherited them for a small time use them as motivation to do better, to be better, and then you pass them on to someone else so that they can be motivated to strive for something even better. A person’s contribution to the legacy isn’t devalued by the betterment of it, but it fact the opposite, the betterment of a legacy proves the worth of each individual contribution by making something worthy of strife.

Stepping back even further, I can see this is happening not just at the level of an individual competition, or an individual track and field team, or a track and field program, but also at the level of the MIAC conference, and the level of Division III, and all levels of the sport, or any sport. And if you really think about it, it’s what redeems competition of any form as a tool for good, rather than a recipe for conflict and war. It’s why we can’t lose when we live with clear eyes and full hearts.

Success is a gift and records are made to be broken.

Leave to a legacy worth chasing,

Laura