Going For It!

As some of you know who are regular readers, several of my family members including me figure skate.  Recently my daughter went to see Stars on Ice at Little Caesar’s Arena in Downtown Detroit.  It had all the recent Americans who participated in the Winter Olympics in Beijing who if you follow figure skating are household names.  I think everyone knows Nathan Chen who won the gold medal in the recent Olympics.  If you are interested, you can follow this link to see the list of stars: The Skaters | Stars on Ice.  While most people point to the quads and triple jumps as well as the spins that defy balance, every part of skating requires effort at that level.  The thing about skating is that you can easily tell the difference between someone who is “phoning it in” and someone who is really “going for it”.  Yes, the great skaters make their jumps and spins look easy but the moves in between distinguish between someone who is truly out there for personal joy and to entertain the crowd and those who simply are going from one technical element to the other.  It is possible to win based on the technical elements but as my coach always says, figure skating is a visual sport.  Fundamentally, to both look good and be good (which I am neither), it takes great control of your body in everything you do on the ice.  My daughter shared videos from the performance and one of my favorite skaters is Jason Brown.  He does not consistently land his quads which in this day and age takes him out of gold medal range because of how skating is scored, but he is amazing to watch.  If you are remotely interested, here is his long program from the recent Olympics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W44QDl16pK0. 

Besides the amazing technical capability and grace, I believe what sets him apart is that he does not hold anything back.  He puts it all out there both physically and emotionally.  I would argue that this is the key to finding meaning and purpose.  Whether it is figure skating, another sport, or life in general, it is hard to achieve something meaningful when we hold back.  With so much money on the line in Professional and now College sports, I often find it more exciting to watch a high school basketball or football game where the young adults are out there for the love of the sport and competition.  Heck, even my son’s little league baseball games can be more entertaining than MLB as the kids make bold moves to steal bases and swing at bad pitches hoping to get one over the fence.  Intuitively, I believe we all know the exhilaration of really putting it all out there in the hopes of achieving something great.  I also believe we all understand that it requires effort to achieve success. 

So why do most of us hold back?  If you have read this far, most of you are screaming at me that I am being naïve.  The world is a tough place and those who put themselves out there expose themselves to failure or worse, find themselves marginalized.  Fear of failure is a good reason for why people hold back but I do not believe it is the primary reason.  I don’t believe people are fundamentally lazy but I believe the root cause that holds most of us back is that we let life beat us down and choose to hold back because it’s just too darn hard to expend the effort required to overcome the hurdles.  This may be a result of a series of failures that has exhausted a person’s reserves.  It may be that the everyday responsibilities of life just take too much time and effort to have left over energy for anything else.  And, of course, there are external forces that prevent a large portion of our population from even having the opportunity to go for it- lack of education, hunger, homelessness, poverty, systemic racism, gender bias and other forms of discrimination and hate.  The list can go on and on and certainly most of us agree that many people are never given the resources and support to be able to “go for it”. 

I read a recent article that addressed the question of how much parenting impacts the future success of our children (The One Parenting Decision That Really Matters – The Atlantic).  The conclusion was that the main parenting choice that impacted the future success of kids was what neighborhood and community a parent chose to raise their child.  As most of you know, I didn’t grow up in Ann Arbor, MI (which was sited in the article as increasing the odds of future success), but my parents made sure to find the best neighborhoods and schools every time we moved to a new city.  The interesting parallel here is that the greatest determinant of the health of an individual is the zip code they live in.  Who we surround ourselves with and what resources are available have a lot to do with our ability to go for it versus those who are held back.  Sadly, disparities in our society stack the deck against a large portion of our society. 

Which makes it all the more sad when those who have opportunities choose to settle for mediocrity.  People point to the pandemic as a cause for burnout which is the rock bottom of holding back.  But I believe before the pandemic, many of us were treading water already beaten down by the countless pressures and stresses in life.  That left so many people choosing to go through the motions of living without achieving their potential.  For physicians and other health care professionals the successive waves of electronic medical records, increased scrutiny and regulation, diminishing autonomy and control, and overwhelming patient loads for many doctors and nurses caused many of us to shrink in and focus on just getting from one day to the next.  The pandemic merely pushed us over the abyss.  It is likely we can tell a similar story for other professions. 

I’m here to tell you that holding back is not an option.  While the world has beat us all down, those of us who were given the opportunities by our families, our communities, and the advantage of resources have an obligation to get back up and go for it.  There are simply too many problems in the world to solve to squander the amazing talent and expertise that is already here.  There are some who will get back up because they are motivated by fame and fortune.  But most of us that have been knocked down are not out there to become billionaires or a household name.  I truly believe that most of us, especially in health care, went into this to make the lives of those around us better and we can’t do that if we are not even playing in the game.  I can’t promise anyone that if they “go for it” that they will succeed.  Many of us will fail and maybe never achieve our ultimate goals.  Some of us will achieve great things but most meaningful solutions were built upon the countless incremental efforts of those who came before us. 

When I get down about my lack of progress on certain initiatives and contemplate why I am putting in so much effort, I try to take a long view of where I started.  Having the broader perspective allows me to appreciate the small successes and failures over time. 

This is not a story I like to share but here it goes.  When I was 16, I failed my driver’s test three times before I finally passed.  The reasons are burned in my mind for all eternity.  The first time, I parked 2 inches too far from the curb parallel parking downtown (who needs to parallel park in the suburbs of San Antonio especially without power steering?).  The second time, they told me I signaled too late when I changed lanes.  The third time, I apparently did not keep a two car distance between me and the car in front of me.  I think it took me two months to get up the courage to take my fourth driving test.  As the examiner got in the car, he looked at me.  He was the same guy who had told me I signaled too late and, of course, reminded me of my prior failure.  At the end of the test, he stared at me stone faced and handed me my test results.  Not only had I passed but I received almost a perfect score.  Me passing a driving test may not be the most meaningful accomplishment in the world but the ability to drive safely has allowed me to both help countless friends and family as well as the freedom to explore the world.

The first thing you learn in skating is how to get up after you fall down.  Whether it is a driver’s test, sports, a job, or family responsibilities, for those of us who are able, we have an obligation to go for it every day.  A failure or a small success may be the ingredient for your or someone else’s future success. And if you can, help someone else by opening the way for them to “go for it”.