Life as an Amateur

I loved Lauren's post full of McLuhan quotes, particularly the last one which read, "the amateur can afford to lose." In the original context, McLuhan was praising the freedom of amateurs. They are not obligated to succeed, so they can take risks and break rules if it pleases them, which can at times lead to great success. What an inspirational way to approach daily life!

However, when I originally read the quote, I took it out of context. I read it to say that being an amateur is a safety net. It is the exact opposite of taking risks, and this is the type of amateurism I have banked on in the past.

Take a few steps back to high school. I went to a really small high school (graduating class of 12), so sports were something that everyone participated in, regardless of talent. They were more of a social thing. Now I'm going to admit something embarrassing. I ran on the x-country team, but I am a terrible runner. I'm over 5'8," I don't weigh a lot (even less back then), and I look like I could be OK at it. But I'm not. I am truly awful.

However, I wasn't willing for everyone to know that. Instead of admitting that I'd be lucky to ever run a sub-8-minute-mile in my life (10-12 minute ones suit me just fine), I set myself up as "the encourager." I ran at the back of races and came in dead last. Every time. If a girl was having a rough race, I'd just jog next to her and talk her through it. That may seem nice, but my real fear was that if I actually tried to be good, I wouldn't be. So I just didn't try. How pathetic!

So this will be my new goal: I can still embrace being an amateur freely (thank God, because odds are I'll stay that way for the rest of my life, like most of the world does!), but instead of using it not to try, I can use it to try things in my own way and have confidence that I can afford to fail. Or, as Juanita pointed out in Thursday's class, maybe it isn't failing so much as it is discovering that one approach didn't work. (Isn't there a famous quote about that, too?) Now lets try the next theory...