When asked about his daughter, actor John Malkovich replied, “ I only have two rules for my newly born daughter: she will dress well and never have sex.” Sounds good to me.
I personally would also like to confess to another rule or perhaps it might be better described as an aspiration. Deep down, I’ve always hoped that one of my three daughters would follow in my footsteps and take up track. While I may not have been the world’s greatest sprinter, I did have wheels and I like to think I’ve passed on some of those genes to my offspring.
Consequently, I could hardly contain my glee when at the age of my twelve my daughter Kassi decided she wanted to be a hurdler. As a former high school and college track coach, I was even more pleased when she asked me to help her. Apparently Kassi was having trouble with her pacing and couldn’t seem to get past the third hurdle.
So, off we went to the local track. Just as were pulling the car up, Kassi spotted a number of boys on the track. Suddenly her total demeanor changed and she snapped, “No Dad, I don’t want to go out there!”
Trying to be understanding, I asked her, “What are you intimidated by? Are you afraid they’ll pick on you? Make fun of you?”
She replied, “I know, I know…I just don’t want to.”
At that point, beginning to lose my patience, I dug in my heels, and said, “Well we’re not leaving until you get out of the car and at least try this!”
By then she was really mad and said “You don’t understand Dad, and besides, you’re not taking into account my feelings!”
Agreeing she had a point I backed down and had actually started to drive away before I turned to her and said, “No! I will not let you be intimidated by those boys, we’ll work through this together!”
Now very upset, she turned to me and spit out through clenched teeth, “I hate you”.
But…. she did get out of the car.
After that Kodak moment, I proceeded as if nothing had happened and began to show her fence drills, skipping drills, the basic motions, and rhythm drills. At this point, she lightened up somewhat even managing to ignore the boys who were by now running around the track.
Although she appeared to be gaining more confidence, I could still sense her fear.
Rather than risk having her fail, I decided to turn the hurdles upside down and had her simply concentrate on running the full set of hurdles a number of times. Here she met with success.
Seeing we were making progress, I suggested we put the hurdles up and then try the real thing. Kassi blasted out, hit the first two hurdles, got to the third, and was stopped in her tracks by fear. She turned back and tried again, and again, and then finally made it through the full set. As she made it across the final hurdle, a huge grin split across her face as the others on the track, having watched her struggle and ultimately succeed, broke into spontaneous applause.
Kassi walked over to me, grinned and said, “I don’t hate you”.
I said, “I know”, gave her a hug, and proceeded to tell her how proud I was that she had tackled the course despite being afraid of banged up shins and boys who would make fun of her.
Thinking about it afterward, I thought that her experience on that track was much like life. How often do we compromise our own values, dreams, and hopes because we’re afraid? How often do we stop pursuing our desires because its easier to go along with others? Life really is just a series of hurdles that are often made more challenging because of the push and pull of desire and fear. While in Kassi’s case it was the fear of falling down and the fear of the boys, for others it may be other more or less complex issues. But, just as it was in Kassi’s case, it really is just about having a vision for what you want to do and pursuing it, one step at a time…hurdle by hurdle, banged shins and all. Unbeknownst to me, Kassi’s coach had also suggested that if she couldn’t get past her fear, perhaps she needed to think about another activity. That made her victory even more impressive.
Was it worth the struggle?
Judging by Kassi’s beautiful smile and the light in her eyes, oh yea it was definitely worth the struggle!
