E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web
There’s no time of the year I love more than summer vacation with my family.
We stay in an old beach town in Florida right on the Gulf. We leave behind our laptops, smartphones, dress shoes, and responsibilities. We shed our watches, stop racing around, and don’t take work calls.
Mornings are spent under an umbrella on the beach, building sandcastles, or taking walks. Afternoons are for hammocks, bike rides, or reading. And after dinner, we usually play a game. Sorry. Risk. Monopoly. Sometimes even heated rounds of poker.
Several years ago my oldest son, Jack, and I were engrossed in a game of Texas Hold’em. And let me tell you, this kid goes all in on just about every hand. When I call him on it, he has good cards. When I don’t, turns out he is bluffing. This perfect storm of me being a terrible poker player, Jack having Lady Luck on his side and his boldness of play, means I lose almost every hand.
To add salt to the wound, he handles winning with the subtle grace and humility of a high school marching band.
After one such victory and the raucous celebration that followed, I asked Jack with an exasperated smile, “Dude, how are you totally destroying me in these games?”
Jack, shuffling the deck in preparation for his next conquest, glanced up and said, “Dad, you play not to lose.” He then looked down at the cards, focusing on the important work at hand, before adding, “I play to win.”
His words struck something deep inside me.
Jack was right. I was playing not to lose. And not just in poker. In life as well.
As I watched him shuffle the cards behind the stack of his winnings, I thought about how differently I lead my life today than I did when I was his age.
Instead of jumping out of my seat to be the first one chosen, I sit back, play it cool, and pretend I don’t care.
Rather than be the first to raise my hand, I wait for someone else to act, to fix, to solve, to speak up.
Rather than take a risk, I’d prefer to play it safe. I don’t want to draw attention to myself.
Think about it. When was the last time you felt like you were playing to win? I don’t mean when was the last time you won a game, scored a goal, earned a promotion, or beat some kid at a game of poker. I mean when was the last time you risked failure, gave it your all, and stepped in to participate fully in every area of your life? When was the last time you felt totally and wholly alive, like you left nothing on the table?
As Jack gathered yet another round of winnings, I realized that my kids were not shackled by the fear that dominated my adult mindset.
They weren’t afraid to look silly.
They had no reservations whatsoever about getting naked, singing loudly, asking questions, or trying something new.
They’re free.
Free to try.
Free to laugh.
Free to engage.
Free to fail.
Free to rise back up.
Free to win.
We are born free. Inherent within each of us is the ability to get back to that state: to dare greatly, go big, and run forward unhindered by expectations, judgment, and fear.
Let’s be clear. Freedom does not mean lack of responsibility. It does not mean you get to live as if you’re at Woodstock every day. Far from it.
Freedom necessitates owning the power and responsibility of choice. It means you hold the reins, you determine the course, and you certainly own your perspective. Instead of having a master or a past to blame, you’re empowered to make choices and determine your future. It is the very opposite of slavery.
But over time, we lose touch with our sense of freedom. We feel caged in by expectations, burdened by responsibilities, shackled by fear. We forget that we are free to get in the game. That life is waiting for us to step up to the plate and take a mighty swing.
Too often we remain in the dugout. And in doing so we become spectators. We shrug and complain about the game, but we don’t participate in making it right. We stop stepping up. We stop stepping in. We worry we might strike out.
But failure isn’t something to be avoided. It is essential for our development.
Psychologists today are increasingly concerned about the next generation of children who have been raised to play it safe and be careful.
“Helicopter parenting” is a term coined in 1969 by Dr. Haim Ginott. It refers to a style of parenting in which the parents tend to hover, to be a bit overbearing, ever watchful, and overprotective. Today the epidemic of overprotective parents has spread beyond helicopter parents to bulldozing parents. These parents don’t hover; they take things into their own hands. Any risks, adversity, and roadblocks that might hinder success for their children are forcefully pushed out of the way. This kind of parenting hurts our adolescents as we try to build the best future for them. But it also adversely impacts our little ones.
Risk-taking is an essential component of play in early childhood. It is how children learn to regulate fear and anger. As kids climb higher up the tree or shimmy up the pole, they are testing their limits; they are assessing what they can handle. “Interfering with risk-taking mammalian play imperils our young by undermining their confidence,” journalist Leslie Kendall Dye writes.1 She had a daughter who was a daredevil and who constantly wanted to find ways to test how strong she was. Bystanders often stepped in to get her daughter off the fence and out of the tree. But Dye knew her daughter was doing important work: She was facing her fear and deciding whether to listen to it or push past it.
“Risky play teaches emotional resilience,” says Jay Griffith, author of A Country Called Childhood. “To prevent small risk-taking in our children is to keep them infantile, enclosed, and unimaginative.”2
Now, Griffith is not suggesting that we let them fence with real swords, or jump from a dangerous height in the hopes they’ll sprout wings. But he is saying that in their pretend play, in their scaling of play structures in ways parents don’t like, in their roaming the neighborhood in packs, they are doing important, essential, life-giving work. They are testing their sense of freedom and deciding what exactly they can handle. They are learning to deal with adversity, and developing their grit, their resolve, their pluck. Critical traits for children, but no less important for adults.
Unfortunately children today are growing up in a very different era than the one that sent them outdoors at the age of five and told them to be home by dark. A recent study of parents in the United Kingdom found that 43 percent of parents didn’t think children under the age of fourteen should be allowed outside unsupervised.3
Seriously?
Yes, taking risks sometimes leads to danger. But the return is surprise, delight, growth. Risk leads to confidence, triumph, and an overwhelming sense that we can do what we set our minds to. In fact, some psychologists believe that the rise in anxiety and behavioral problems in children today stems from this lack of free play and risk-taking in early childhood.
As adults, we rarely get back to the kind of freedom we experienced in childhood. Biologically, we become more risk averse as we age. As we mature, our prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that prevents us from acting on impulse and inhibits risk-taking, begins to put on the brakes and make us think twice before speaking up or stepping in. While that serves us in some ways, it also holds us back, reins us in, puts us in shackles, and encourages us to play small.
We fall for the lie of thinking it’s better to endure the ache of mediocrity than to strive for greatness and risk the sting of genuine disappointment.
But we hunger for lives that are free. We long to be back in the game.
So let’s get back to living in a way where we are playing to win. Where we go after victory with everything we’ve got.
When I had four kids under the age of eight, sometimes my primary job as a husband was to give my wife a couple of hours reprieve from the constant demands of parenting.
So one summer day I decided to take my kids to a nearby park. As we began to take over the playground, we heard shouting in the distance. Wanting to see what the commotion was all about, we wandered over to discover a soccer field.
From behind the fence, we saw the source of the shouting. Like a drill sergeant, the soccer coach yelled commands and angrily blew his whistle when his players weren’t following his instructions perfectly. We laughed at his intensity. I warned my kids that if they didn’t start listening to me, I was going to get a whistle to use at home.
And then the coach’s whistle screamed out one more time, followed by this command: “Stop what you are doing. Stop it! Come on, damn it!”
The players halted where they were, hung their heads, and circled up around the coach. Once he had their undivided attention, he yelled, “If you wanna win in the game, you gotta practice like it matters! Do you hear me? Like it matters, damn it!”
Now, there is no doubt that the manner in which we practice influences how we show up to play the game. And when you offer your time as a coach, you should rightly demand the respect of your players. There is a time to challenge players to give a little more, to try a little harder, to do a little better. There is even a time for anger.
But it was July, the middle of summer; it was late in the afternoon on a hot and humid day, and near the end of practice. And the players were seven- and eight-year-old kids.
As we turned away from the practice and headed back to the playground, I shook my head. That was one way to coach, one way to lead, one way to prepare for the upcoming game.
But while the best coaches in soccer, and in life, may insist on practicing like it matters and strive to win games, they also know that real victory is about so much more than a scoreboard.
Soccer was one of the first physical activities I returned to after relearning to walk. My legs were wrapped with Ace bandages because the skin on them was so fragile. To further protect them, I wore two pairs of bright-red sweatpants under my gold soccer shorts.
I know. It wasn’t a great look.
I could barely run. My arms were still frozen at 90-degree angles. This little dude was a threat to no one on that field but himself and his own team!
Even so, Coach Steiner treated me like every other player. I was welcomed back, encouraged to practice to the best of my ability, and even invited to participate in our first game.
Near the end of that game, we were tied when our team had an opportunity for a penalty kick. Everyone gathered around in excitement, eager to see who Coach Steiner would choose. We expected him to select his best shooter, line the kid up, score the goal, and win.
That’s what it’s all about, after all.
And then I heard him call my name.
“Johnny, come over here.”
I stood up and shuffled over to him, apprehensive about why he had called me over. Even with all the beautiful naïveté of childhood still coursing through my veins, I recognized that I had no business taking this kick. Every single other player on my team had a higher likelihood of scoring a goal than me.
Coach must have sensed how I felt because his first words to me were, “John, look at me.”
I looked up.
He put his hand on my shoulder, bent down to eye level, held my gaze, and said, “You are the one I need for this, John. I need you to run out there, hold your head high, and kick that ball as hard as you can.”
With that, he stood up, patted me on the back, and proclaimed, “Now John, go get us a victory.”
I jogged off in my sweatpants and gold shorts. Stood behind the penalty line. I stared at the keeper. I would have sworn he was three hundred yards away.
The referee set down the ball and backpedaled toward the sideline.
I heard the sound of the whistle.
I took a deep breath, stumbled toward the ball, and took a mighty shot, using every ounce of strength that remained in my legs to launch that ball as hard as I could. I prayed it would make it to the goalie. I knew I wouldn’t make the goal, but I at least wanted to make it far enough for the goalie to block it.
The ball slowly trundled toward the left goal post. The goalie took a couple of quick steps to his right, and dove to grab it, his hands outstretched. But somehow, some way, the ball snuck just past him and into the back of the net.
Goal!
I stared in shock. My teammates rushed over to congratulate me.
I had done it. I had scored the winning shot.
Looking back on that penalty kick, on that goal, and on the mob of kids that surrounded me afterward, I’ll never forget that moment. Because we won.
No, I don’t mean we won the game. I don’t actually remember what the final score was.
The victory didn’t happen when I scored the goal.
We won that day because our coach had the audacity to line up a skinny, burned, bent-over ten-year-old kid to show every player, every coach, and every parent on the bleachers what real victory looks like.
Sometimes victory comes from overcoming an enemy, defeating an opponent, or trouncing the other team. But other times victory means more than a win: it comes when you beat the odds, succeed in overcoming a struggle, or come together for a cause greater than yourself.
Coach Steiner wasn’t going to let me sit on the sidelines anymore. He wasn’t worried about whether I could kick that ball all the way to the goal, let alone past the goalie. He was concerned about showing me that I was still in the game, still on the team, and I still mattered. He taught me that in participating fully we all win; that in risking, we discover what we are truly capable of.
Victory comes when we take responsibility for our lives and stop waiting for others to do the work we are called to do.
Therein lies true freedom.
There is a reason that our justice system punishes people by taking away their freedom.
Freedom is a human need, like food and water.
For too long, we’ve forgotten how life-giving it is.
So here’s a question to consider: Are you living free?
Okay, so you may not be locked in a cell. But do you feel free? Unfettered? Able to step forward, willing to risk it all?
We may think we’re free, but I think we’ve gotten used to living shackled.
We’ve grown accustomed to being bound by debt, unfulfilling work, or low expectations.
We are chained to past hurts, tied down by limiting beliefs, or suffocated by the inability to forgive, accept, move forward.
And we accept an existence of playing small, stop dreaming, and merely tolerate a life that isn’t fully ours.
So instead of sprinting into each day with the freedom to choose how we think, speak, act, and love, we let other people, unimportant things, or our own fear, run the show.
The greatest triumph in life is not competing and winning, but stepping into the arena and giving it your all.
It isn’t easy or pain free. You may fall and fail. But it will make you feel alive.
And it will liberate you to live In Awe.