If Life is a Contest, I'm Changing the Rules

I've been doing Girls Inc mentoring since the fall. Each week for one hour, I spend time with a group of  9- and 10-year old girls at an elementary school in my neighborhood.

Mostly we do art projects or some other type of crafts. We meet in one of the school classrooms and we're limited on space and time, so our activities aren't anything too extensive or messy. A lot of paper crafts and drawing and coloring.

Last week we were drawing and making posters with magic markers and puffy dog & cat stickers, as 9 and 10 year old girls do.

I try to comment about everyone's projects and tell them what a great job they're doing. I think back to how much it meant to me when one of my teachers made a big fuss over something I made or did in class. I try to find some kind of unique element in each of their artworks to draw attention to and make them feel good about.

Last week somebody in the group said that somebody else's drawing was better than hers. I said, "It's not a contest. Plus yours is really great." Another of the girls, who strikes me as something of a cynic (just for the record) said, "Oh, it's ALWAYS a contest." And she was definitely referring to more than just an art project.

Something about the way she said it made me feel like she had known this for a long time. And she pitied me for not being in on the secret.

This got me thinking. First off, it made me sad that a 9- or 10-year old girl would have this philosophy about life. That there are always winners and losers.

As a 35 year old girl, I definitely feel like it's a contest but I don't think I felt that way at their age. Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong. For some reason, I thought it was the world and all its screwed up messages that had somehow led me to believe this at this point in my life.

Maybe I've always adhered to this belief system. I didn't try to argue with her or tell her it's not a contest. I just started thinking about it a little bit.

So what if life is a contest. What are we competing for? And in what categories are we competing against each other?

Prettiest? Skinniest? Most successful? Nicest house? Fanciest car? Biggest bank account? I'm sure there are plenty more, but these come to mind first.

Maybe if we rethink the contest itself we can have a healthier, better perspective on how we relate to each other and how we view ourselves.

What if the categories include things like "How kind was I?" "Did I take advantage of every opportunity that came my way?" "Was I willing to go the extra mile for people who needed a little bit of help?"

What if we're actually not competing with each other at all but really we're competing with ourselves? Those other versions of ourselves that try to creep in and sabotage our progress. The ones who want to lie to us and tell us that we're not good enough...that we'll never be good enough...that we really can't do it and we might as well just give up now.

It would be easy to blame the world for this and all these crappy messages but on some level, we still get to decide what comes in and out of our own minds. We can build a wall like a strong fortress that keeps those lies out. And we don't have to do it alone. With a support system of faith, friends, family, and personal cheerleaders it is possible to build a foundation of Truth and positive hooplah in our hearts.

Have you been watching the Olympics? I have to admit I haven't, but I know that each athlete competing didn't get there overnight. Just like anything else we want to be good at, it takes practice.

Keeping our negative thinking in check takes practice. Celebrating our accomplishments instead of ripping ourselves apart takes practice.

Whether you believe life is a contest or not, at some point we will all end up at the end. I have to believe we won't care so much about winning and losing when we're taking our last breaths. But hopefully if we have won the race in the ways that it matters we will experience a feeling of accomplishment, and much more important than that, a peace unlike any we could have known otherwise.

How to Host an Olympics Watching Party

The Olympics are such an exciting event and what's not to love about finding a reason to host a party? I've got a great round-up of some fun Olympic-themed party ideas from the blogosphere...check these out and consider hosting an Olympics party of your own!

Project Nursery's Entertaining with Emily went for the gold with this adorable tabletop display! Create your own with gold and blue paper plates plus mint julep cups stuffed with colorful tissue paper for the Olympic torch.

Speaking of the Olympic torch, make your own edible version using traditional ice cream cones and cheese curls. Too cute! (via Living Well Spending Less)

By far, one of the most fun Olympics parties I came across was this one from Bird's Party...one of the cutest blogs around.

Some other ideas I had play off the color scheme of the Olympic rings, arguably the most recognizable thing about the Olympics.

1) Buy small tin pails in red, blue, green, black and yellow and use them to serve popcorn or other snacks at your event. [I found some at Party City]

2) Buy small plastic bowls in red, blue, green, black and yellow and use them to serve color coordinating candies. [Again, Party City]

3) Hang a garland of American flags [USA! USA! USA!]

4) Serve cupcakes with chocolate coins in gold, silver, and bronze.

5) Small colorful gift bags are great for favors.

6) Serve drinks in cups with sugared rims (color coordinating sugar in Olympics shades).

7) Play games and give out small toy medals to guests.

8) Watch classic Olympics films [Cool Runnings, Miracle, The Cutting Edge, etc]

The Things We Lose

I've been thinking lately about loss. Not so much in a emotional, melancholy, can't get out from under the covers way, but more about loss from a straightforward logic perspective.

After changing my college major at the end of my sophomore year, I learned I would now be required to take a sequence of science classes my previous major had not required. I didn't want to fall behind and had to find an option I could complete in the time frame as well as one that would fit into my already set schedule.

Somehow I landed on Botany. Nobody I knew had taken it so there would be no sharing of notes or hitting up friends for old tests and study guides. But, plants, yeah that could be cool,  I thought. Might learn something practical I could use later on.  The class included a twice weekly 1-hour lecture plus a three hour weekly lab.

It was in the lab that some of the info I was learning really seemed to click, and while I have sadly never become a botanist or put my plantly knowledge to any sort of real use, there was something very important I learned.

The apical meristem.

Never heard of it? Yeah, I hadn't either until I randomly took a college botany class. Prepare to be enlightened.

You see, plants have this thing called an apical meristem. Located at the very tip of a plant's shoots, it sends little messages for the plant to keep growing. One definition says it encourages growth. So it's like the plant's tiny cheerleader. Come on, keep going, you've got this! 

But what happens if the apical meristem gets broken or cut off? Oh never fear my friends, because SCIENCE! (and God). If a plant loses its apical meristem, aka its cheerleader, then the lower regions on the remaining branches (which also have meristems of their own that are just waiting to be needed), start to grow to make up for what was lost.

This is why you will see trees or shrubs that have been topped or cut down to just the sticks grow back even fuller and bushier than before.

And it isn't just the parts of the plants we can see above ground that have this. There are root meristems too. If a plant loses parts of its root, the same little workers down below send messages to grow in other areas to make up for what isn't there anymore.

And this brings me back to my starting point about loss. We have all lost something in our lives. Some of us may feel like we have lost everything at one point or another. Maybe you're at that point right now.

My husband likes to joke about makin' gains in relation to his time spent at the gym. Gotta eat right so I can go to Gainsville. Need to lift so I can get those gains. And it does feel awesome when we gain something in this life. Our gains and accomplishments definitely have a way of trying to define us.

But I wonder if it's really our losses that can sometimes have more power over us.

Like you're just chugging along, trying to live your best life, and all of a sudden something swoops in and removes one of those all important apical meristems....someone or something that made you feel good, encouraged, like things were working right for you. What happens then?

For me, it's very much like what happens in plants. I tend to go into freak out mode, and I start scrambling to make up for what was lost. Digging deeper into the reserves to keep those all important growth encouragers activated. Sometimes this is good because it means I'm not giving up. But sometimes it means I'm trying to replace things that can't be replaced.

Have you ever lost something (or someone) and tried desperately to replace it with something (or someone) else? How did this work out for you? For me, it's never good. The replacement always ends up feeling like a cheap imitation.

But even in loss, there is room for growth. And sometimes it's the things we lose that leave us feeling more like ourselves. More free. More beautiful.

I have a wonderful, joyous, abundant life, with so much to be thankful for. But I still have huge gaping holes of loss. Loss of relationships that I thought would last forever. Loss of identities that I clung to because they felt so safe and comforting. Loss of opportunities that may never come around again. When put that way, it doesn't seem like a very pretty picture.

But I think of the apical meristem. And how even after it has been hacked down to very nub at ground level, a beautiful plant may very well grow back from it, fuller and stronger and more vibrant than ever before. To me, that is encouraging.