Our theme for the month of March is “I was wrong about.”
At what age do we learn what it means to do a good job? Watching my now one-year-old niece, I often joke that she gets a cheer for everything she does, including farting. What age does that start shifting over—where people start expecting things from you rather than just celebrating?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I’ve been training for roller derby. It’s been a very good experience for me for a number of reasons. It’s been good to have something physical to stay active, it’s given me a great supportive community to be a part of, and, possibly most crucially, it’s given me codified reachable goals.
The way my team’s advancement works is colored star ranks like traffic lights: Red Star, Yellow Star, Green Star. Getting your green star means you’re good to play. During practices, skaters are assessed on the skills they’re displaying and are advanced by coaches and trainers when they think that skater has demonstrated that they’re ready. The goal of training is clear: get your Green Star. Easy as that.
I’m proud to say that I have gotten my Green Star and have even gotten to play in a game! It was a lot of hard work, just showing up to as many practices as I could, working through two sprained ankles, and staying active during month long breaks.
So why do I still find myself at practices angry and upset with myself? I’ve had practices where I’ve managed to nail moves I’ve never done successfully before but still spend a few minutes in my car crying afterwards. Why? Why is the success I know I’ve reached not enough to be proud of myself? It’s not every practice, of course, and sometimes it’s just a bad day, but still there is this nagging feeling in me that I’m not good enough for my teammates and I’m letting them all down by not performing at the level I should be.
It’s tricky with something like a sport because there are codified successes and failures. You can win or you can lose. You can get it right or wrong. There are good rounds and bad rounds. When you have the bad ones, it can be really hard to keep going or feel good because that’s a codified failure. You did that. You did the bad job. Your head can know why it happened and know exactly what went wrong and how to do better going forward, but honestly sometimes that’s worse—because that means you could’ve been better but you weren’t. How do you find success in something like that?
The answer I’m very slowly struggling to learn is by changing your goal—changing what you mean by success. For example, I’m very proud of the fact that I got my Green Star. It was a very hard won victory and I wouldn’t have gotten it if my coaches didn’t think I was worthy of it. Looking back on my journey, I wish my goal hadn’t just been ‘Get My Green Star’ but just ‘Learn the Game and Do Your Best.’ I pushed myself harder than I should’ve at times and wound up getting sick, I came back sooner from an injury than was probably recommended, I blew off other things in my life because I was very singularly focused on the goal ‘Get My Star.’ I was hard on myself after practices for not doing better and angry if I was getting things wrong.
None of that helps me be a better player or teammate. It just makes me miserable about this game that I love and want to play!
I have this problem associated with other things in my life too. I get angry with myself for not reading enough books, for not making the art I should be making, for not writing more. All this does is bully myself for no real good reason. It doesn’t help me make that art or read those books. I cannot shame myself into being better.
The difficult layer on this is how often and how easy it is to determine our worth by our works—a very bad and toxic idea to hold. I know this logically. All people have worth no matter what. Nothing a person can do can change that. The idea of Productivity = Value is an oppressive idea perpetuated by the trap of the capitalist society we’re all stuck in.
And yet. When I do a bad job, I feel bad. When I get critiqued for doing something wrong, it hurts. I want so bad to prove to my teammates that I’m worth the time it takes to teach these lessons, but I am not an investment. I am a human being with thoughts and ideas and hopes just as realized as anyone. I put myself out there, I’ve learned (and continue to learn) the game, and I do my best every time I’m on the track. That’s all anyone can ask of me, including myself.
If we are going to measure ourselves, we need to figure out a better measure. For me, it’s trying to frame all of my shoulds into wants: I want to read more books. I want to make more art. I want to get better at derby. My successes shouldn’t be determined by my wins and losses, and more than that, my successes shouldn’t be tied to my worth. I am the same person if I win a game or lose it. I want to win, of course, but as long as I put myself out there, try, support my teammates, and do my best, that’s success to me.
Sam is unsure what exact words describe them best: Lunatic has been used, Gothic Romantic is apt, and Big ol’ Nerd is reductive but true. Mostly they just like stories in whatever form stories can be found. Sam specializes in Frankenstein, running “The Uncanny Productions” on YouTube, but they also dabble with podcasts, singing, and theatre as well. They have a DVD collection that’s long outgrown its shelf, a coffin they use as a desk, and an unrelenting joy for things that are spooky, ridiculous, or magical.
