What if Superman stayed in Smallville?
Odd question to ask, I know, but I’m living in what is technically a small suburban town and quickly realizing how and why I settled so quickly here. Quicksand. See, I’ve been watching the small town superstar mentality flourish here and it is really beginning to grate on me. Sadly, it took me this long to break away from the quicksand and understand what it is I’m not liking.
My kids play sports. We win games sometimes and we lose sometimes. The boys get straight A’s and generally seem pretty wonderful at most things. They are superstars. When it comes to sports there are a handful of ‘Superstar’ camps. You can sometimes recognize them by the color they wear or the team they like. I’m the Giants guy. None of that identification is terribly important in of itself. What makes it relevant is the fact that it does exist. See, we have these factions and divisions of stardom within this little town, because it is usually one faction or the other winning our parks and rec youth championship.
Here’s what it took me so long to realize: I was allowing stuff like that to matter. It doesn’t. Just like I was allowing a GYFL tackle football or AYSL tackle football championship to matter. It also does not. All of these things are ways to recognize kids for minor achievements that show how they are superior to people who are either inexperienced and poorly coached or simply do not care. Yet we walk around with a great deal of swagger about relatively meaningless accomplishment. I have one friend/coach who raved about his local parks and rec flag team being unbeaten in 5 years.
Parks and Rec Flag.
Sure, it is cool to feel good about your accomplishments but my point is that the small town mentality over these things limits your ability to go further by, for one, limiting your reasonable understanding of your skill level. You might be the king of Maricopa, but what does that actually mean? It isn’t the same as king of New York or King of AZ (which has less people than NYC–not state–CITY).
It is easy to lose that relativity and toot your horn egregiously. Once that thing starts blaring you need to get out of the town and go find real opportunity, challenge, value, and worth. That, my friends, is why I am done hiding behind this white picket fence.
Some Thoughts:
- Yesterday was horrible for writing and here I am near the end of the night again, ready to throw up (hoping I don’t) and trying to squeeze in another late night blog. You’re supposed to learn from your mistakes, not dive headlong into the path of stupid again and again. I’ve heard that Einstein defined crazy as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Perhaps I am crazy. Or maybe I’m just loaded on coffee tonight.
- Its weird that auto-correct changes my misspelling of crazy to ‘cray’. Thanks, Kanye.
- Goodbye Will Smith the football player. Another senseless, testosterone driven death. Neither you nor your family deserved this.