Humbled

“We're just ordinary people; we don't know which way to go. Cuz we're ordinary people Maybe we should take it slow.”

John Legend- “Ordinary People”

I was humbled a couple weekends ago. It came during two specific but very different occurrences over the course of the day, and reflects a reoccurring theme throughout this year.

The first came while attending a St. Cecilia Jr. High girls basketball game in which my housemate Chino coached. While watching two teams play in the game before St. Cecilia played, it became apparent that not only was one team much better than the other, but that it was led by two specific players. I watched the same two plays over and over: the team would either rebound the other team’s missed shot, pass to one girl and watch her dribble and outrun everyone on the floor to make a right-handed lay-up, or, the same girl would dribble the ball around waiting for everyone to move out of the way, and then dribble the ball with her right hand in for a lay-up. In my head I thought that the way to stop this is to force the girl to dribble with her left hand because she clearly wants to dribble with her right hand every time. I also thought that if I were out on the court playing in this Jr. high game I would pick up on that and would make that happen. It is easy to see that and think of that game plan as a twenty-two year old while watching girls half of that age. But, as quickly as I had those thoughts, I remembered myself at that age. I would have gotten caught up in the game plan and not thought at all about the bigger picture of what was happening. I would have more likely committed stupid turnovers, let the player drive right, and taken mindless shots (which is why I wasn’t ever very good at basketball).

My second humbling experience of the day occurred when half of my community and half of the Vincentian Service Corps community combined forces to participate in a trivia night fundraiser at Marian Middle School. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love trivia and random knowledge. I think this comes from watching Jeopardy! every day after school from about third grade through junior high. Perhaps my most successful after-school extra-curricular activity was Scholastic Bowl in Junior High and High School. I became really excited when I first heard that Saint Louis is trivia-night crazy and that most organizations and schools use big trivia nights as fundraisers. A couple weekends ago I had my first trivia experience in Saint Louis. I felt confident before the trivia night began as I remembered my success during school with trivia. As the rounds came and went, I realized that the questions were more difficult than I imagined. Our team realized this as well, and we were only averaging about six or seven correct answers for every ten questions asked. We ended up finishing respectably in the middle of the pack, but the winning teams knew about nine of the answers in every category. The part of the trivia night that resonates with me most however, was not how many answers I knew, but the instances in which I believed I was right and used my sureness to convince our team that we had the correct answer, when we really didn’t. One of my community members pointed this out to me on a few occasions and, and this reflects a major focus of my year in personal growth.

In my opinion, this year in JVC is as much, if not more about inward growth as external growth. A friend pointed out during a conversation last summer that I have hard time admitting that I don’t know something. This was a humbling experience, and I was almost taken aback. But it is true. I do not like to admit that I do not know something. Instead, I will search for even the smallest tangent (which might not even be related to the subject) to appear somewhat knowledgeable. That conversation has caused me to try to be more aware of this bad habit now, and I believe I am getting better at admitting that I don’t know something if it is true. Taking this self-reflection a step further, I find it even more difficult to admit that I am wrong. This has led me at times to project myself as blindly arrogant, baselessly opinionated/judgmental, and leads to me having not the most approachable demeanor or be the most fun person to talk to and be around. (It’s true, I’ll admit it, and anyone who knows me knows this is true too.) This is downright ugly and I am well aware of this and am working my best to change this during this year.

This year is a good year to exercise this internal growth. Living with five other people with differing thoughts and opinions and ways of going about things causes me many times to admit that my way and ideas are not necessarily the best, that there is more than way to do things. It also provides me with ample opportunity to say that I do not know things a lot of the time (which is true). I have often been quoted this year as saying that failing is the best way to learn. This year has taught me that it is ok when things do not go according to plan, and that I can be wrong. This is something that is difficult for me to admit. But, it is true. I draw things up that are too ambitious and move too quickly without proper time to stop and learn and build up each level. It seems like every week at the Y I have these humbling experiences with the kids. I am lucky to have another staff member who points out that I need to address these small issues before I get to the bigger things that I want to accomplish with the games. This happened last week during my basketball unit. I divided the kids into small groups to do different dribbling and passing activities. After having them dribble down the court with their right hand, and then another trip with their left, I was going to have them alternate. My colleague was quick to say “NO, that’s too hard for them”. I agreed and moved on to have them slide down the court while bounce passing. That did not turn out so well and I left that day frustrated. The next day when discussing it my colleague told me I should put more emphasis on footwork and defensive slides first. Then, once they got the movements down do chest passes first and then bounce passes. This worked better and the day was more of a success.

I guess I now am beginning to approach every day as a learning experience, and see how every plan has so many things that could go right and wrong, and I need to embrace that. I need to take things slower, and realize that growth can occur at plateau levels and not just as constant upward movement. I’m learning this year to focus more on the little things, not get upset when they don’t go right, and build those up to the big picture and the larger achievements.