And The Winner Is....

When you look at the following two words, I want you to, without putting too much thought into it, choose the word that appeals to you the most (there are no right or wrong answers):

Winning

Trying

I'm going to be honest, and I hope I don't offend anyone, but for me, when I look at the word "winning" I think of  a "winner". A somewhat self-congratulatory, uber-confident bad ass, who works very hard, admirably hard, toward his or her goal, but suffers a great consequence when there is no "win" despite all of their efforts. Much like the "tryer", they are driven to conquer their feelings of fear, and self-doubt and replace them with feelings of courage and confidence. They have something to prove to the world and/or to themselves. I'm not sure of their exact motivation, but for whatever reason, whatever it is that drives them also makes "losing" a crushing blow.

On the other hand, when I see the word "trying", I get butterflies of nervous excitement. Dare I? Can I? The word holds such a romantic connotation. What can be more heroic than trying? Even though I know that I may very likely fail, and fail miserably and embarrassingly at that, I will still try. I won't win first place, or second place, probably not even 30th in a field of 35. It's especially exciting when it's something I most definitely do not have a natural propensity for. The very fact that I am not a natural makes me feel giddy with the desire to try it. The "winners" may be annoyed that I'm trying. And do you know why? Because they know that I am gaining the same exact self congratulatory, uber-confident bad ass good feelings from trying that they are from winning. The caveat..there is no downside. There is no failing. There are no feelings of inadequacy or self-loathing or disappointment. Because at least I tried. I was brave and I tried. They were brave and they won. To me, there is no difference at all.

I'm not saying one way is better than the other, I'm not trying to be modest or humble here, because clearly, I am being neither with my self-congratulatory pat on the back for "trying". I'm just thinking 'n typing.....

I'm not really sure what made me think of this today. I ran a 10K last weekend and someone asked me "How did your race go?" First of all - I forgot it was a "race" with "places". In my mind, I thought that just trying to finish it was how you "won". I answered "It was great!" Then feeling like something else was being asked I added happily; "I wasn't last!"

It occurred to me then that I try a lot of things that I'm not just "not good" at, but am downright "bad" at. This goes for both myself and my horse. I push us...maybe somewhat haphazardly and with no real direction or plan, but I push us to do things that we aren't necessarily cut out for. And maybe we're kind of bad at a lot of the things we do. But we try, and it makes me feel brave and proud in a way that a "winner" would be appalled at. I'm pretty sure my horse feels brave and proud too.

Rob and I are kicking around the idea of writing some children's books with Maddie as the unlikely-hero character. I'll write them and Rob will illustrate. I think it sounds like a fun thing...to try!


Here are some pics of the 10K last weekend. I've got the Santa Barbara International Half Marathon in a few weeks. I'm gonna give it a go!