That's right. I said "Tits and Ass". "Why?", you ask, slightly incredulous. Because life is too short to be serious all the time. Let me explain a little further.
Last night we had a guest coach for team practice. There is a big festival coming up and we have put ourselves under a lot of pressure to perform. The coach put us through our paces for an hour and a half and at the end of it we were tired but feeling strong and confident. Before we all went our separate ways for the evening we were given the opportunity to pick the coach's brain about our sport. All the questions and answers were incredibly well thought out and you could tell we had just had an extremely focused practice with our minds on winning some medals. After the question and answer period was over, the guest coach asked us who was going out for a beer after practice. A few hands went up and a few others, myself included, looked around first to see if anyone else was going before they would commit.
Noticing the hesitation in the group the coach said something I believe to be quite profound. I am going to paraphrase because I can't remember the exact wording but you will get the idea. "This part of team sports is very important. You have to leave all this intensity behind and hang out together outside of practice. Go for a beer and don't talk about your sport. Talk about tits and ass."
This got quite a mixed reaction from the group. Suffice it to say, there were some jaws open. It was outstanding! I didn't expect it, though I suspect our coach has heard it before and might have been prepared for it. The shock turned into humour and we were all joking about it immediately. One female on the team piped up right away with "We were just talking about that!" At the end, we did our team cheer, bid each other good night and agreed we would go for a quick beer and some wings to finish off the evening. When I arrived at the pub, there were already more people there than usually go for beers and that was only half of the group expected to arrive. We ended up with about 16 out of 23 people coming out for a beer. Usually we get about 8. I guess the coach got our attention. A few of us spent the first 15 minutes throwing Monty Python quotes at each other and laughing at our silliness and the joy of irreverent humour. We had fun! We enjoyed each others company and we didn't talk about our sport.
I learned a lot of great stuff at practice last night that will make me a better athlete and competitor. I also learned a tremendous life lesson. There is a time and a place to be serious. There is a time and a place for intensity. There is a time and a place to laugh at yourself and shed the burdens of your day. From now on, I am going to use the phrase "Tits and Ass" to check myself when things are getting unnecessarily serious and heavy or at the end of a period of intensity in my day. It's like Green Tea ice cream after Sushi. It refreshes, cleanses the palette and makes you smile.
Yep, I actually went there: "Tits and Ass" is the Green Tea ice cream of life.
Thursday, 28 July 2011
Friday, 22 July 2011
When is a Crisis Not a Crisis?
Ok. I am back. I checked out for a while because the household has been mayhem since my teenager got back. It's not just her, though, it's all of us. During her 10 month absence, the family dynamic shifted and now we are in another transition period. Everyone is settling in but these things take time. Plus I am getting used to feeding 5 people instead of 3 and don't even get me started about the laundry! Anyway, it is transition that I have been thinking about the most lately. You know those times in your life when you feel unsettled? You want a change or to shake things up but don't know what or how? That's what this year is about for me. I know it sounds like a typical mid-life crisis but I have a theory about this.
First of all, let me say that I think men have gotten a bad rap on the mid-life crisis front. The stereotypical younger woman, sports car crap aside, I think it is human nature to take stock of our lives and want to reset some of our goals or create a new path for ourselves. Part of it comes from the phase of life we are historically in by the time we are in our mid-40s. The kids are more independent and nearly grown, we are confident and mature in our careers and as our teens begin to transition into adulthood and begin to pursue their dreams, we are reminded of the hopes and dreams we once had for ourselves. We review the choices we have made and ask ourselves if we have achieved what we really wanted. If we made sacrifices and compromises, it makes sense that this is the time for us to decide if we want to pursue the things we missed out on or create a new vision for ourselves. There is also this paradox we reach where our experience and maturity gives us confidence but we are more fearful of risk and change at the same time. Combined, I think this creates the perfect storm that we have labeled the "mid-life crisis".
In my case, this is a little more tricky because we are going through this phase with our teenager, but now have a 3 year old and 7 month old to care for. Regardless of the added complexity, I think the time is still right for a rediscovery. I can't be the same parent to my 3 year old now as I was to my 3 year old 13 years ago; I'm not the same person. I have evolved into a different "me" over time. Believe it or not, I am more calm and more patient than I was 15 years ago (though no less intense). I know, scary.
This begs the question, "when is a crisis not a crisis?". You don't have to be 40 years old to know that the only constant in life is change. As a species, a lot of our heartache comes from trying to hold onto things the way they are even though we know that change is inevitable. I would argue that we hit mid-life and the changes are so dramatic that we call it a crisis period but what we should be calling it is a rebirth. For some reason, we have no right of passage for this time in our lives and I have discovered that by designating this as the year of me, I have created my own right of passage. I am giving myself permission to be reborn (not in a religious sense) and rediscover what I love about life. I am giving myself permission to reassess my goals and determine whether or not they are still relevant. That's not a scary idea, it's an exhilarating one! Why are we so afraid to embrace this phase of our lives? Why isn't it as exciting as our 18th birthday or graduating from college or the birth of our first child? Are we any less alive now than we were 20 years ago? Are our dreams any less important? I have no intention of sitting back and letting the next 40 years just slip by because I am afraid of what other people will think. Failure and success don't have more or less meaning now than they did when I was younger.
I am starting a movement to get rid of the phrase "mid-life crisis" and replace it with "mid-life celebration". It's time to let go of the stereotypes and embrace the reality of our age. There are some things I miss about being 20 but they mostly revolve around the issues I have with gravity. The truth is that as we get older, we realize we can consciously create the things for ourselves now that were given to us freely in our youth. Maybe that's how the system works - we have to be fearless and have boundless energy and enthusiasm when we are young or we would all die off by 25. Once we grow and mature, we replace those with our intentional energy and enthusiasm and our life becomes more meaningful. As far as I am concerned, that is a transition worth celebrating and I intend to embrace the hell out of it.
First of all, let me say that I think men have gotten a bad rap on the mid-life crisis front. The stereotypical younger woman, sports car crap aside, I think it is human nature to take stock of our lives and want to reset some of our goals or create a new path for ourselves. Part of it comes from the phase of life we are historically in by the time we are in our mid-40s. The kids are more independent and nearly grown, we are confident and mature in our careers and as our teens begin to transition into adulthood and begin to pursue their dreams, we are reminded of the hopes and dreams we once had for ourselves. We review the choices we have made and ask ourselves if we have achieved what we really wanted. If we made sacrifices and compromises, it makes sense that this is the time for us to decide if we want to pursue the things we missed out on or create a new vision for ourselves. There is also this paradox we reach where our experience and maturity gives us confidence but we are more fearful of risk and change at the same time. Combined, I think this creates the perfect storm that we have labeled the "mid-life crisis".
In my case, this is a little more tricky because we are going through this phase with our teenager, but now have a 3 year old and 7 month old to care for. Regardless of the added complexity, I think the time is still right for a rediscovery. I can't be the same parent to my 3 year old now as I was to my 3 year old 13 years ago; I'm not the same person. I have evolved into a different "me" over time. Believe it or not, I am more calm and more patient than I was 15 years ago (though no less intense). I know, scary.
This begs the question, "when is a crisis not a crisis?". You don't have to be 40 years old to know that the only constant in life is change. As a species, a lot of our heartache comes from trying to hold onto things the way they are even though we know that change is inevitable. I would argue that we hit mid-life and the changes are so dramatic that we call it a crisis period but what we should be calling it is a rebirth. For some reason, we have no right of passage for this time in our lives and I have discovered that by designating this as the year of me, I have created my own right of passage. I am giving myself permission to be reborn (not in a religious sense) and rediscover what I love about life. I am giving myself permission to reassess my goals and determine whether or not they are still relevant. That's not a scary idea, it's an exhilarating one! Why are we so afraid to embrace this phase of our lives? Why isn't it as exciting as our 18th birthday or graduating from college or the birth of our first child? Are we any less alive now than we were 20 years ago? Are our dreams any less important? I have no intention of sitting back and letting the next 40 years just slip by because I am afraid of what other people will think. Failure and success don't have more or less meaning now than they did when I was younger.
I am starting a movement to get rid of the phrase "mid-life crisis" and replace it with "mid-life celebration". It's time to let go of the stereotypes and embrace the reality of our age. There are some things I miss about being 20 but they mostly revolve around the issues I have with gravity. The truth is that as we get older, we realize we can consciously create the things for ourselves now that were given to us freely in our youth. Maybe that's how the system works - we have to be fearless and have boundless energy and enthusiasm when we are young or we would all die off by 25. Once we grow and mature, we replace those with our intentional energy and enthusiasm and our life becomes more meaningful. As far as I am concerned, that is a transition worth celebrating and I intend to embrace the hell out of it.
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