I have always wanted to learn how to draw. The interest goes back to high school when I wanted to pick up a hobby that was more than video games. I would sit at my desk full of motivation and vigor for what I aspired to be, an artist. I spent hours digging through tutorials, finding the “best” resources, bookmarking links and scouring the web for PDFs. I would find books on anatomy, figure drawing, facial expression, composition, color, fundamentals and more. Four hours of digging later I compiled all of these resources into a folder on my laptop. I would be overwhelmed by the sheer number of stuff I “had” to get through.

I recently attended an ice skating and remembered a valuable lesson that OCS had taught me. It was one of the toughest lessons I had to learn and 2 years later it was still applicable in my life. The lesson: how to respond when you fail or identify a weakness in yourself. This was my first week in a seven week ice skating class. I had already taken one set of skating classes, but this time I decided to learn skating for hockey. The people in this class were aspiring hockey players. The majority of them were suit up in hockey attire.

Shame. Anger. Frustration. Inadequacy. Failure. Hopelessness. These are the words that come up when you have flashbacks of your OCS memories. Often they are brought up by scrolling through social media and seeing someone that was in your platoon post. It could be about there experiences. It could be about something in their lives. You’re happy for them, that they didn’t fail, that they get to pursue their dreams. But at the same time you feel hollow inside. “That could’ve been me” All of these would haves and should haves. Gratitude for what you have now and what you have learned about yourself for the past year go away.

Marcus Rashford, 23 Jadon Sancho, 21 Bukayo Saka, 19 In the Euro Cup 2020, the 3 missed their penalty kicks in the shootout to give Italy the cup. Imagine being that age and in that position. Thousands of fans watching live from the stadium. Hundreds of thousands more watching from home. National pride on the line. Your reputation, possibly even your career. What goes on in your head in those moments? Is it “I have to make this, I have to make this, I can’t miss”. Or is it quiet, a sense of peace, that whether you make it or not doesn’t matter.

Change the definition of success, so that no matter how small you inch towards your goals, you always win. Let me explain. You read 2 chapters. Your mind tells you, “Well, why didn’t you read 3 chapters?”. You worked out today? “Why didn’t you go harder?”. Did 200 jumps with the jump rope? “Why not 400” This mindset can quickly become toxic. Although the voice helps you push past your limits, it made you feel like shit afterwards. Be okay that you did read at all. Be okay that you even moved. Took out the jump rope and did the jumps.

A dialogue with myself. I made this website using blogdown by Yihui Xie with Hugo theme Fuji and deployed by Netlify. I largely use the blogdown workflow recommended here. Serve Site on first open of RStudio Addins -> New Post Commit to Github Voila! Check website to make sure it has been refreshed