I’m tired. It’s been such a crazy couple of weeks at work. One project has consumed me — my time, my thoughts, even my dreams (bleh). I just got two more projects today, and I’m still not done with the first one. All are presentations that will be given in the next few weeks.
In addition, God has His own project for me, a form of homework that is even more taxing. I got home tonight just grateful that tomorrow is Friday and I get to sleep in on Saturday (though Sunday morning its back to early morning sound duty… woohoo!)
I’ve been watching my favorite sport, women’s figure skating. It’s kind of anti-climatic since my counselor (or should I start call him my "life coach"?) revealed who won the gold without realizing I didn’t want to know. Grr…. Anyway….
Sasha Cohen had a rough night. She kept missing her triples in the practices and she missed them again in the long program. She still placed first and got good scores, but it was obvious all Shizuka Arakawa of Japan had to do was skate a clean program and she’d beat Sasha’s scores. So that’s what she did.
And that’s all she did. It was obvious that even though she could do the triples, she
chose to do doubles in order to keep it clean. She played it safe. And she still won the gold medal. It was a flawless performance. And a beautiful one. She deserves the medal, but the whole thing bothers me.
I guess my problem is that she chose to play it safe, rather than risk the gold in order to go all out, to just attack it full on and suck the marrow out of it. To me, if it were me, it would feel like a rather hollow victory. Because I’d played it safe.
Yeah. Right.
Except I live on the safe side of life. I always have. Oh, I walk on the risky sidewalk. Most of the time. But I’m on the safest side of that sidewalk that I can find. I’m like Shizuka. I’ve done the work, so I deserve the recognition for that. And I skate a clean program. But I don’t take the risks needed to be truly great. I don’t go for the triples and risk "deductions" or even a fall when the doubles will get the points I need to claim the prize.
But that’s changing. Because I’m changing. That homework God’s got for me? It’s the triple; well, a triple, one of many yet to come. And I’m gonna do it. Even if I fall and fall and fall again; even if I get all bruised up or injured, even if it takes me the rest of my life (and it probably will) to stick the landing, I’m gonna do it. I’d rather attempt the triples, fall and get a silver than stick the easy doubles and take home the gold.
I’m so done playing it safe.
Depends on your goal. If your stated goal is to win the gold medal, then you do the minimum necessary to accomplish that. Risk no more than you have to. If that’s the way you’re going, then my question is what good is the goal?
It’s very similar to the tension I feel in doing commercial sand sculpture. Somebody hands me $500 for a sculpture that exists only in my mind, it’s pretty much incumbent upon me to make sure there’s still something standing at the end of the day. I can’t go to the client and say “Sorry. There’s you’re sculpture. It fell over because I went for a tricky design and failed. See you!”
So, the decision isn’t really about going for it, but whether I’ll take commercial work. Most of the time I won’t, for this and other reasons.
Who are we trying to please? Other Christians? Co-workers? God? You’ll never please all of the other Christians.
There’s also no point in making things harder than they need be. There are certain kinds of designs I will never be able to make in sand. To attempt them will be to fail every time in the balance of gravity and structure. We deal with real forces.
And, there’s more than one way to “go for it.” You can go rhino-style, or you can try with more finesse. Straight up the hill, or a gradient-averaged route that still gets you to the top over a longer route but more practical.
I think the key is to keep track of why. God is cheering you on, to try for the impossible. Make that arch, do a triple (whatever that is) and then go on to something that scratches the very deep creative itch inside. God is always pleased, but there’s still something about reaching farther that I haven’t figured out.
AMEN SISTA!!! Go All Out!!!
I may be a fellow barbarian in fat girl clothes…but I think I’m a big fat coward as well….and yet I don’t want to stay that way…I truly want to be a BARBARIAN!! thanks for your honesty ….b
Hey, I know we’ve met and Joe talks about you as if we know each other, but for some reason I never make it to your blog. I hope that changes. I like this post.
Yay – Hi Amy! No, we haven’t met… yet. BUT we have many people in common… and I love reading your blog. Next time your in Nashville we need to get together!