My son, who has thus far been spared the ski-on-pop-on-a-chair-on-a-wooden-disk circus trick, did spend the young years watching every wakeboarding move made by his grandpa, his dad, and his uncle. They were – and are – pretty good.
Back when we were all younger, his uncle, who was serious enough about wakeboarding to go to a wakeboarding school in Texas, tried and succeeded at about everything I saw him try on a board. He could do flips and 180s and all kinds of amazing things. I was in awe of him. He worked hard and his effort bought him smoothness of execution and a delightful combination of strength and grace. It also cost him some wipeouts.
One morning, when my son was about four, as the boat made yet another slow circle to deliver the rope to my brother-in-law, my son called out with the boldness that only a doted on nephew would possess, ” I know why you fall so much. You’re going too fast of speed.”
Indeed.
I heard him. I laughed along with everyone else at his sweetness and his logic. What I didn’t do was listen. I should have, immediately, because what he offered was true. When we go too fast, we fall down.
I have some proficiency with putting a plan and a schedule together and I can, with varying degrees of smoothness, pull off its execution. Calendars and schedules are not as exciting or exquisite as my brother-in-law’s wakeboarding, but the result of my effort is usually worthwhile. Except that sometimes I wipe out. Epically.
I forget that just because I can get it all to work on paper doesn’t mean that it will translate well to life. It all begins to crumble when I feel the need to hurry, hurry brought on by being overcommitted. My bulging to-do list overwhelms me and I wipe out because I try to go too fast of speed.
Speed is a brutal task master, standing between me and the sweet faces that I have failed to look at as they have shared their stories, the friends I have sped past on my way from a vital here to an urgent there, and the confused little people who don’t conform well to a life of hurry. There is a time for hurry, but it is no way to live.
Speed should receive my gratitude when it eventually causes me to take a spill because just as my brother-in-law grabbed the rope for another go behind the boat, when I get up I can start again. This time I can do it better. I can slow down.