To serve your turn long after they are gone

And so hold on, when there is nothing in you,

Except the will which says to them “Hold on!”

 This is the second half of third stanza of Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘If” and somehow it always reminds me of an obstacle course race I ran when I was just a kid.

It was at a picnic held by the M.S.A. (Muslim Student’s Association). This was the precursor that would later become the international Muslim organization called I.S.N.A. (Islamic Society of North America).

Every year in summer, we had picnics in the park. I could never win the running races but this particular obstacle course came down to me and my sister, and I won.

I remember reaching out, putting every ounce of my ability into the race and finally reaching it.

That was all fine and well, but what about when the goal is more dangerous.

I started watching that movie Blue Crush about that girl who puts everything into winning some sort of surfing championship. There were subplots of female empowerment and stuff thrown in, to raise the stakes so we, the audience, would really want her to succeed.

Yes, it’s impressive to ride a wave and not go splat. Yes it’s probably thrilling because the chance of bashing your brains out on a rock is quite high. But maybe I’m getting a little tired of movies that show someone so totally invested in accomplishing a ‘win’ or a goal that in and of itself, is quite meaningless.

Is it that she’s pitting herself against the ocean? Is winning the simple fact that she survives? It’s like those movies about getting to the top of a mountain, being the first one up there.

But what is the person really doing it for?

Isn’t it for the bragging rights?

So you can walk into a room and people look at you and whisper behind their hands, “Oh, she’s the one who won that pipe event at the surfboard contest thingie…”

It’s the same thing with the olympics. Train for four years, specialize to the point where you have memorized every turn of the bobsled course or ski course or whatever so that you can wear a medal and stand on a podium while hopefully they play your country’s national anthem?

And then what?

Do they have any goals beyond that except maybe getting drunk?

Look at Michael Phelps. You see him on some computer commercial and then he gets caught in a picture smoking a bong. (I think that’s what they call those marijuana pipes.)

Personally I think there’s such a crisis of self-esteem in students today because so many of them know that they’ve done nothing to earn a lot of the empty praise they get.

I’ve seen parents praise their kids for sitting up straight at the dinner table.

There’s a commercial for Rice Krispies where the mother thanks the kid for taking a bite of the cereal.

Goodness! No wonder they don’t take what their parents say, seriously. No wonder they think, ‘oh you’re my parents, you have to praise me.’ And they tend to believe the kids who put them down at school becaues their parents have lost all credibility in their eyes.

There’s a hadith of the Prophet (peace be upon him) that goes, “Speak the truth even if it is bitter and displeasing to people.”

It kind of goes back to that post I made yesterday about advice. I give my best advice even to people I really don’t like.

And after I’ve done that, I feel better about myself because I did what was right, even when it wasn’t expedient. (By the way, doing things like that is a great way to build self-esteem!)

Similarly, when someone asks me a direct question, I will speak the truth even though it may be bitter and displeasing to them. But what I’ve learned is you can still be diplomatic.

Maybe I got it from my hubby. I used to ask him if something made me look fat. He would avoid the question by asking, “What do you think?”

Not in a sarcastic way, but in a way that really asked me what I thought of the outfit. If his intention was to get me to stop asking questions like that, it worked. (By the way, I may be wrong but I’ve heard that a husband lying when his wife asks him if she looks fat is permissible in Islam.)

When my kids would ask me if their artwork was good or their story was well written, I would not say it was if I didn’t really think so.

When they were little, there were many times they went running away in tears. But I’d take them aside and explain that whether or not I liked their piece of artwork or story had absolutely nothing to do with how much I liked them. The two were not tied together and you cannot take it personally when someone doesn’t like your work.

I think that’s the mistake so many people make. They invest their own self-esteem in their artwork. I know it’s hard not to, and I’m not saying that negative comments don’t sting. But don’t you think you should be so much more than what you do?

It’s like back when we had first bought the house and were struggling, and I was babysitting up to eight kids a day, many of them babies. A relative of mine once said to me, “Oh, you wipe bums for a living.”

Instead of being crushed, I gaped at her. I just thought it was so stupid to look down on physical labour, even if it was a tad menial.

I didn’t think of myself as wiping bums for a living. Yeah, that was part of what I did. But I took care of these children so their mothers could feel secure while they went off to work, and while I was at it, I could stay home and care for my own as well. It was good honest work. To me it reflected more her mentality than anything else. Taking care of the kids was what I did, not who I was. (although even if that’s all I did, what’s so wrong with that???)

But it’s interesting. Now that my twin daughters are all grown and artists, they have their own art store on Etsy. They’re doing fairly well and they often if not always, ask me what I think of their artwork.

And they’re okay now, when I say if it’s not my cup of tea. But what is really good, is that when I do say that I love something, they know that I really really mean it.

And of course it goes both ways. My kids have always been my harshest critics, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.