Words of Wisdom Wednesday - Ralph Waldo Emerson

12:00 AM Kaitlyn 1 Comments

This year, I started playing volleyball. To give you some background, I was the kid in P.E. who would be the last one running back from that pole...the one who would try to kick a soccer ball and instead somehow trip over my own feet...the one who never played any team sports before until fifteen. Basically, what I'm trying to say here is that I don't use my mad athletic skills very often. So when I told my parents I wanted to play volleyball, they were, well, surprised. Especially my dad. He was all, "What? You really wanna do volleyball?" I mean, he was pleasantly surprised. He and my mom met playing volleyball, and they both love the sport.

On the first day of volleyball, my mom and I quickly rushed out to buy volleyball gear. At one o'clock, I walked through the doors of the gym, nervous, excited, and anxious all at the same time. There were some girls there that I recognized from my former homeschool group except, great, they didn't seem to recognize me. Since the first week was figuring out who would be on what team, we mostly did drills without much teaching. The warehouse-like building had little-to-no air-conditioning, and the huge garage doors covering one side of the building was barely open. It was stuffy, sweaty, and tiring. I was so frustrated with myself that tears actually formed in the corners of my eyes. I could not serve. I passed the ball so crookedly that my partner had to run after it every time (embarrassing!). I could not spike or set. I was literally questioning why in the world I had decided to do this. Seriously! What was I thinking? I wasn't exactly a sporty girl. That would be my younger sister. And yet here I was, in this heated court, trying and failing to do so much as serve the ball over the net from the ten-foot line. It was not pretty. Anyone who saw me then probably thought I looked a sight.

American writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, said, "Every artist was first an amateur." Well, that would've helped me out a lot on the first day of practice! My expectations were set much too high for a beginner like me, and I was caught up in the negative.

Looking back, even after two months, I have made massive improvements. I can serve underhand over the net. I can pepper the volleyball to a teammate without her chasing the ball too often. I still can't set very well, but I'm working on it. :)

Sometimes, we get caught up in that little ditch on the road and forget the path leading us to success. The path will have ditches and curves. There will be changes and struggles. But you know what? Every athlete was first an amateur. It's okay if you make mistakes. My coach says, "You can either cry from your mistakes, or you learn from them." Failure helps us learn what we were doing wrong, and adjust it so it works. If you're learning a new language, new subject, new sport, or something you've been working on for a while, take heart. If you keep at it and try your best, you will succeed. It may not be as fast as you would like, but, little by little, you will make progress.