Excuses or Choices

In high school I didn’t find it too difficult to participate in cross country, wrestling, track, concert choir, church youth group, church choir, song and dance troupe, two years of orchestra, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and was a non-speaking cast member in school plays. My grades were good, but nothing to shout about. I just assumed I wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. It never occurred to me that my extracurricular activities might have an impact on my grades.

Wilkinson, my high school track coach, said that I had too many irons in the fire and none of them could get hot. Being a city boy, it took me a while to figure out the branding analogy. To placate Wilkinson I dropped out of the running for concert choir president, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes president. Wilkinson was not the least bit placated. In retrospect I wonder how good I could have been at one or two things, rather than trying to do everything.

I had the same issues in college. I was doing a double major in Math and Physics. I was working 20 hours a week in the computing center. I was working a full-time job every summer and most spring breaks. I had track or cross-country workouts that consumed every afternoon during the school year, and kept up the regimen during the off-season. There was no time to do two-a-day workouts like I did in high school. I still had too much going on, and it showed up in my running times, and also in my grades, which were good, but again, nothing to shout about. I never ran close to my high school racing times. College academics were too time consuming; imagine that!

If I had pursued easier academic subjects and had not studied so hard in college, I might have been a better runner. If I didn’t study so hard, I might not have my current job. If I didn’t work my way through college maybe I wouldn’t have had the money to finish. If I didn’t do all those high school activities maybe I wouldn’t have been accepted to college in the first place. If I hadn’t been accepted to college I might not have met Jean. If, if, and more ifs. I have yet to find the right combination of “ifs” that would have yielded everything I wanted. It simply wasn’t possible to do it all, and that is my greatest regret.

As the great cartoon philosopher Popeye the Sailorman said, “I am who I am.” I am the sum total of the choices I’ve made over my lifetime. It does no good to wonder what might have been. Speculating on past choices is useful only if the same choice is available in the future; not too likely. I did the best I could, making the choices I did, with the knowledge I had at the time. I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with that.

All of this is simply a prelude to a message for Ann and John about their choices thus far. I am pleased and proud of the choices you’ve made; as if that wasn’t already abundantly clear through the content of this blog. I hope that you are as pleased with your choices as I am. I would not change a thing. It would be my wish that you not obsess too much over what you could have, would have, or should have; or in our native tongue, “coulda, woulda, shoulda”. In the fractured English that I enjoy so much, “Ya done good”, now move on.