Thanks

I wrote the story below almost two years ago. I felt this story could make more of an impact, but when trying to figure out where to go from the last paragraph, I was stuck. At the time, I was leaning toward “never feeling good enough and losing the ability to be yourself”, or “being grateful for the opportunity in front of you.” But now, after about over two months of life during a pandemic, this story has delivered a whole new meaning.  "The year was 1999. I was wrestling in the state semi-finals at heavyweight. I had just beat my opponent 3-2 to qualify for the finals. In my eyes, I didn't wrestle well. I didn’t create enough offense. My opponent was in the match all the way to the end. Although happy to be in the finals, I was disappointed overall.   As you can imagine, I was showered with compliments. I remained silent for most of them. I didn’t deserve them. Why would you congratulate a person who truly should have wrestled better? I should have been getting yelled at...severely. I remember finding my coach downstairs in the warm up area. He was one of my harsher critics. “Surely,” I remember thinking, “He’s going to let me have it (scold me) now.” He looked at me with the widest smile I’ve ever seen from him. He shook my hand and said some very improbable words. “Son, you wrestled one hell of a match!” I quickly replied, “He shouldn’t have been in the match. My offense should have been better.” He continued to smile at me. I looked away with disgust. I started putting my warm-ups back on. My coach then slapped me on the shoulder as he loudly yelled, “Hey!” to get my attention. As I turned towards him, he stood very tall with a stoic look on his face. I don’t remember the exact words, but it went something like this, “This is a pretty big stage to be on Schue (nickname). You got the job done. You dominated that match. It doesn’t matter what the score was.” I nodded at him in agreement. He stepped closer to me and put his hand on my back shoulder. He very genuinely spoke his last words to me of the night before walking off. “Enjoy and appreciate where you are right now. You have a whole cheering section upstairs waiting to see you.”  As I cleaned up, I soon realized what he was talking about. I was in the state finals in a very prestigious wrestling state--Iowa. Many wrestlers and non-wrestlers would kill to be in my position. Walking around upset with myself during this moment in my life would have been a huge regret. I went upstairs full of pride for what I had accomplished and a big smile on my face. Although it was still hard to take a compliment, I at least said “thank you” and smiled at each of them. "  I remember my senior year being one of the most disciplined and motivational parts of my life. I remember the extra conditioning before school and after practice. I remember driving to nearby towns on the weekends to get extra practices. I remember being motivated towards one goal and that was to be a state champion. I can’t imagine getting the opportunity taken away.  All that work.  All that sacrifice.  All that excitement.  All taken away.  Seniors, I empathize with you. This would obviously be hard to take. I would be hurting too. Now being a parent, I can’t imagine having to watch my boys go through such heartbreak. This being said, please take this advice with the idea in mind “I am here to help you progress in life”. Sometimes, help doesn’t sound or feel like help at first, but later on you will learn the motive. Here it is. If you haven’t already done so, get off your pity party. Stop hanging your head and start moving forward. Let’s get going. The world needs you.  There is an old quote I like to use in situations where life, by no fault of their own, took a downward turn (in this case, a spiral). “This is not your fault, but it is your problem.” This is not fair to you. Not even close, but life is not fair sometimes. How you respond to these trials and tribulations are what will define your character, positively or negatively,  Being negative is a natural way to feel in this situation. Yes, you didn’t get to finish your senior year. Yes, you did get some of your glory days taken away from you. Yes, these are memories you can’t get back. Those are just some of the negative facts. You have the right to be sad about this. You have the right to grieve. You have the right to be mad.  You also have the right to be happy again. You have that right too.  This part can be particularly hard to envision, but in ANY event or situation in life, there is ALWAYS a positive side. Sometimes it is so minute (or obvious) you really have to dig down deep to find it, but it’s there. Here are a couple of examples. You could still have your health, loved ones, shelter, food, PHONE, pet, car, ect. Yes, these are some of the basics, but they are essential to your life. Yes, this could be worse.  How about this. You’re generation has been stereotyped for being entitled and taking the easy way out in life. As I see it, nobody is getting what they want right now. This is the first experience of a pandemic for all generations. We are all learning as we go forward with the hope to make a brighter future for all. Otherwise, we are all on equal ground and every person has unique talents and ideas to help. You have the opportunity to fight through your struggle and disappointment, build a strong, positive character through your choices at such a young adult age, and then lessen the stereotype.  So, how does a person get started working towards the positive? How do you know what the positive is? Nobody can answer those questions but you, but here’s some help. My family roped me into watching a children’s movie, Frozen 2, at the start of the pandemic. I normally don’t get much out of these shows, but a simple, life-altering quote really caught my attention. Pabbie, an old, wise troll, trying to warn Anna and Elsa of harm that could be coming to their city of Arendelle, quoted this advice, “When one can see no future, all one can do is the next right thing.” That’s it. What is the first positive, right step for you? Figure this out and get started. Don’t worry about steps two, three, four. They will develop as you go. The key is getting started.  I have high hopes for the Class of 2020. At a young age, you have a great opportunity to respond positively in a time of great hardship.This lesson, if learned, will be invaluable as you grow older. If I could requote my wrestling coach, “this is a pretty big stage” we're all on right now. Many times I’ve had that feeling we are living through a real life history lesson. This is nobody’s fault, but it is all of our problem to solve. Please, appreciate where you’re at right now because every season of life serves a purpose. A brighter future is ahead of us, as long as we are always looking to do the next right thing.  “You don’t drown by falling into water. You drown by staying there.”   Edwin Louis Cole

Let’s be clear. I’m not telling you happiness is not attainable. The key word here is “Find”. To find is to discover or to obtain by chance. Happiness by definition is the state of being happy. Finding something gives the insinuation or assumption that is an item is found forever— or at least a longer period of time. Problem is, happiness is not an item. Happiness is a feeling or an emotion. Emotions are not eternal. They come and go quite often. Yes, I would agree that you can “be happy”, but you will also be sad, angry, annoyed, bewildered, anxious, and all other possible feelings. With happiness, I believe we are trying not to “find” happiness, but to “be” happy as often as we can. This is one my favorite articles explaining the easy, difficult art of being happy: https://exploringyourmind.com/simple-be-happy-difficult-be-simple/

I was in a rather daring mood one Saturday morning. I have learned that putting trust in my children in situations where they could fail is one of the best ways to build courage. And also one of the best ways to give me an anxiety attack. My son and I were about to air up his bike tires. We have a little pump that connects to my car. The bike was in the garage and the car was outside in the driveway. Instead of me going out to move the car closer to the bike, I decided my son, age 12, should try it. It was only 20 to 30 feet away. All he had to do was start it, push the brake, put the car into drive, steer forward, step on the brake, and put it back into to park. Seemed simple enough, right?!? Plus, he would get a real thrill out driving the car himself. With eager eyes, he jumped into the driver’s seat. He listened to my directions flawlessly. The car started, he pushed down on the brake, put the car into drive, and let it glide forward. He was doing great. Or, as my dad would say, “Cooking with gas!” While rolling forward he reached a hiccup. The car got stuck on a raise in the cement and stopped. I told him to (and this is where I should have stopped him) “Give it a little gas with the pedal.” He did it well. He continued to glide into the garage and then I told him “Okay. Hit the brake.” Then, the car sped up, ran through part of our storage shelves, and with a screech, came to an abrupt stop. I immediately told my son to get out of the car. I jumped into the car and backed it out. Then I looked at my son. He had a shocked look, deep breaths of panic, and tears started to surround his eyes. Then I told him, “This is my fault, Peyton. I should have had you do this in an open area. I’m sorry.” He replied, “Like Grandpa’s farm in Iowa?” Then I replied, “Yes, that would have been much better.” We looked at the accident. We had a busted support 2 x 4, a foot long scratch on the hood of the car, and completely demolished storage tote that held some of the kid’s play stuff. Other than that, we were lucky. After a while, Peyton was still shaken. I could see the failure and embarrassment on his face. “I forgot which one was the brake,” he uttered disappointingly. He looked down as if he was expecting for me to yell or scold him. I felt I easily could have yelled at him for the mistake he made, but that would put blame on a person that didn’t deserve it. I replied, “Peyton, this is my mistake. I put you into the car without much instruction. Actually, you did an amazing job hitting the brake after you figured out the other one was the gas pedal. You could have ran the car into the house. This could have been much worse! I think this was an easy lesson learned for both of us.” He gave a slight grin then replied, “How would we have explained to Mom that the car went into the laundry room?” “We wouldn’t! We would have got another car and drove to Mexico!” I replied jokingly. We both were laughing hysterically after that comment. Seconds later, Maddox opened the garage door to the house and asked, “Something bad happen? I heard a skirt-skirt” (Maddox’s term for skidding sounds). Which was quite hilarious because he asked approximately fifteen minutes after the accident. He was probably caught up in a video game. Well, he would have rescued us eventually! We spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon putting a new 2x4 up which was quite fun. I am somewhat handy, but don’t practice a lot, so it was something that the boys and I actually did together. We were finalizing things in the garage. The new 2x4 looked secure and we cleaned up a bit around the area. Everything looked normal again. But there was still something left undone. I backed the car out of the garage. About 20 to 30 feet. I shut the car off and closed the door. “Peyton,” I said with confidence, “Get in the driver’s seat.” He looked at me with fright in his eyes. He said, “No, I’m not doing it again.” “You have to redeem yourself. I can’t have you thinking you can’t drive. And I need to redeem myself too. I’m going to be in the car right next to you.” This is just like a running back in football. After they fumble the ball, the coach will often give the ball right back to the running back to get the player’s confidence back. I wanted to give Peyton the chance to get his confidence back. With a lot of hesitation and nervous eyes, Peyton climbed into the driver’s seat. As promised, I was sitting right next to him. He started the car, pushed in the break, put the car into drive, and idled forward. We came to the same hiccup in the cement. “Give it a little gas,” I nervously said. He did it perfectly. We got to the same point in the garage where he sped up and before I could even say, “Hit the brake,” he had already done it. He threw the gear into park and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Good job Peyton!” I exclaimed emphatically. His eyes were beaming! He jumped out of the car and went into the house and yelled, “I did it!” Maddox responded with, “Dad let you drive again? That’s crazy!” Maybe it was a little crazy, but at least we didn’t have drive to Mexico! A lot of us have a hard time getting out of our comfort zones. Being out of our zone is hard enough, even if we succeed. It is much harder to reach back in if we fail. We can stay there for a long time stewing on our failure, or we can jump right back into it. The great inspirational speaker and author Les Brown quotes, “Failure is not a destination; it’s an invitation for unforeseen victories.” Failures are mistakes. Mistakes are a learned way not to do something. Mistakes are correctable. Correcting mistakes is growth. Growth leads to success. So, without failures, success is hard to come by. Please hear this: Failure is a good thing.