Smallsteps performed her hosting duties at her school Christmas concert tonight, and it went really well. She said the thing that made her the most nervous at the start, was having to sit so close to the school principal. However, when she had her pieces to speak, she spoke clearly, slowly enough, and didn't stumble or mumble. I would have been quite different at her age, and for many years to come.
She probably isn't going to make the basketball team.
What was funny was after it had finished, I went to pick her up from the front and I said she did really well. We then met with my wife who said the same, and then Smallsteps gave her teacher a box of chocolates and a thank you card for the year, and her teacher said well done, and another said how well it went. And then as we were walking to get our coats, a couple of the parents we know came up and said well done as well and how brave she is.
She was so embarrassed.
I know that embarrassment and fear it, not that people praise my efforts too often these days. However, since childhood I have avoided situations where I would be singled out, whether it be for good or for bad. I don't like the spotlight and I don't like attention, so much of my life I have played the middle path, even if I knew I could have done much better. Similarly, I avoided situations where I knew I would be terrible, so that way I wasn't singled out on the other end of the spectrum.
A life of mediocrity.
It is not about getting up on stage, it is with all things and I remember specific instances where I held myself back because I didn't want to be singled out, even if it was to score the winning goal. I would pass. Lame. But I would give myself childish excuses, like being a team player. But that wasn't the case, because in that moment, I knew there was a higher probability of me scoring than who I passed to, so if I was truly taking one for the team, I would have token those shots - and worn the embarrassment.
I assume we all have moments in our lives like this, and perhaps they are sliding door moments that if I had for instance taken the shot, I might have been congratulated, encouraged, got the support required that would have perhaps influenced me to play on, to improve, to push my limits. We often remember the big events and see them as the turning points in our lives, but normally, it is all the little things that led into that moment, and led out of it that actually matter.
We underestimate them, because we don't remember them.
When we walked out of the school, Smallsteps told us not to keep saying she did a good job, so I went the other way and said how terrible it was, that I have heard moose speak more clearly, and she laughed. She knows she did well, and I also know that as uncomfortable as it is to hear it at times, there is also the quiet pride in her when she is recognized for doing something well. I want to support that, because at least when I was young, that was absent from the majority of my own life, and I don't think it made me a better person. Of course, praising every small thing, correcting nothing doesn't help much either, there has to be a balance.
Undeserved confidence gets people into all kinds of trouble.
Perhaps this will be one of the articles that Smallsteps reads in the future and says, "I remember that" and how she felt getting praised, or how she laughed when I was joking about how terrible it was. If she does read it, at least she will know that she did well, and it was noticed.
Sometimes, being noticed is enough.
Taraz
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