I have always lacked what I have come to identify as the macho gene. I certainly would call myself a (white) dude in most of the typical ways, but my ability to associate with, befriend, and/or compete with other dudes was always functionally underdeveloped. I get along fine with most people, but I've always gravitated towards women. So much so that I now surround myself with women at home and at work - I socialize with few people other than my wife and work among a predominantly female group of colleagues at the middle school where I teach.
So much of what I have always thought of as toughness of any kind was of a traditionally male variety. Asserting dominance, seeking a sense of superiority, competing hard. As an adult, I have come recognize toughness as existing in many forms and it has nothing to do with Y chromosomes. Absolutely, Willis Reed was tough when he played on that injured leg, but was he any tougher than my wife when she gave birth to not one but two children as I stood there holding her knee, saying encouraging stuff, and steadfastly not looking at what was happening lest I pass out? Anyone can be tough and I think one's reservoir of mental toughness can be built in any number of ways. My wife did't train to give birth, but a lifetime of being a woman in the world definitely creates some mental/emotional/physical callouses that serve them well in the delivery room.
My running has become the way I atone for my "failure to bro" as a younger person. Not because I want to exude a more potent brand of machismo, but because I want to push through the boundaries of reticence and avoidance I erected as a young person and never overcame. Hitting the road, feeling those aches, powering through, loosening up, and eventually feeling it has been a revelatory process. I wish I'd known it as a younger person, but I am glad to be getting a little bit of it now.
Have a great week, everyone. I am looking forward to paying for the privilege of engaging with this community!
That gets to a lot of what I was trying to say. This uber masculine ideal of toughness and strength just gets in the way of what we're trying to accomplish. Finding a place to stand is so, so key. I absolutely resonate with the idea of atonement. (That Catholicism never goes away.) I think where I've made strides is in learning to forgive myself so that I can continue to work at it. Thanks for the thoughtful response, Joe.
i think there is a correlation between mental toughness and competition. some may need peers (or foes) in a simulated environment where something tangible is at stake for either winning or losing. i also think there are more than a handful only interested in competing against the inner voice, often with something a little less tangible, but just as important, at stake.
i'm coming to associate mental toughness with, to put it bluntly, not quitting from *the* competition, regardless of the format, that gives you the meaning for living. i think it's okay to miss a free throw in a pressure-filled situation, quit on a race, or even quit on running altogether... you just gotta keep showing up for that ultimate competition.
Excellent points. I came across a phrase recently "Staying with the trouble" that I like a lot. It takes courage to stay with it, wrestle with it, deal with it, instead of running away and hiding. I think there is absolutely a place for that in competition and it's a super healthy way to have an experience that takes you to those places. At the same time, yeah, you got to know when to fold em too and take the L. The question, as you put it, is what do you do next. How do you move on. Keep showing up. Thanks for the thoughtful response, Hoon.
I am not sure I have a sense of what this means in my life, especially as this year turned my own sense of what made me anxious or nervous upside down, so I think I am figuring it out. But, I always admired the Manny Ramirez school of mental toughness - each at bat is the same and the goal is always to get the optimal outcome based on the pitch thrown no matter the situation - hit, walk, HR, sacrifice, etc. and then follow the same process the next time around with "no memory" of the last time. Of course, that school of mental toughness is based on a lot of behind the scenes work, but that ability to just be in the moment always amazed me - the ability to be unfazed and just perform or fail, but start again the next time. Maybe that is mental toughness - never too high or too low so you can always get back or maintain a baseline.
That's a great point about Manny. And what did people say? Oh, it's the triumph of an uncluttered mind without giving credit to the amount of physical work he did and the ability to move on. The point I'm trying to make, and figure out for myself, is that all these things are interrelated and affect us throughout the day. I like the baseline approach, and I also don't think we give ourselves enough credit for maintaining equilibrium. Thanks for engaging with the piece, Will. Know it's kind of heavy.
One thing I've always found is that mental toughness is not the same across the board. I consider myself mentally tough about some things - waking up early, running every day, running long distances, etc... - and mentally weak about others - pushing the pace, pushing myself to place in a race, etc...
I don't really know how to square the two. Maybe there's "winner's toughness" and then just "personal toughness"? Sounds a bit like the distinction you were getting at with your foul shot story.
That's a really interesting point about the space between absolutes and why this conversation is so fascinating to me! The place I'm trying to get to is see all of it as a one space, and within that space we have strengths and weaknesses. I think the next step is identifying weak spots and using the tools we've developed to push ourselves into that next realm. Not to be faster or whatever, but to keep evolving. Thanks, Emmett.
I once had academic association I with a troublesome colleague. Collaboration was just not his style. I eventually understood that he wanted me as his competitor. Maybe I should have been complimented but I didn’t live in his world and did not play his game. I competed with myself.
That's an interesting construction. Who says we're playing the same game, right? The need to find a rival, to me, feels counter productive although I know it works for some people. Good for you for recognizing that distinction and staying true to your path.
Find this one really insightful and it resonates. When I started playing pickup basketball as a young adult, I couldn't really dribble, but I could take all manner of weird flick-off-the-backboard hook shots, because that's what I would do in my backyard as a kid–the ball would end up in my hand a few feet from the basket and I'd just flick it up there and got really good at knowing how it would use the backboard. And when I started ice hockey as an adult, I could skate alright (from rollerblading), but I couldn't stop. But what I could do was stickhandle, because I'd spent hours in my driveway as a kid telling myself I was Pavel Datsyuk and just tapping the puck back and forth to myself. I understood why I was good at those things, but for whatever reason, I've rarely thought about how else they could apply in my life, and how I could use that insight even on things that I didn't practice a ton as a kid–that I could "practice" things, for fun, as an adult, too.
Haha, love it. No one could stop my Tim Hardaway crossover back in the day. Maybe it's because I have a young son, but the thought of joyful play keeps coming back to me in a way that feels powerful.
I have always lacked what I have come to identify as the macho gene. I certainly would call myself a (white) dude in most of the typical ways, but my ability to associate with, befriend, and/or compete with other dudes was always functionally underdeveloped. I get along fine with most people, but I've always gravitated towards women. So much so that I now surround myself with women at home and at work - I socialize with few people other than my wife and work among a predominantly female group of colleagues at the middle school where I teach.
So much of what I have always thought of as toughness of any kind was of a traditionally male variety. Asserting dominance, seeking a sense of superiority, competing hard. As an adult, I have come recognize toughness as existing in many forms and it has nothing to do with Y chromosomes. Absolutely, Willis Reed was tough when he played on that injured leg, but was he any tougher than my wife when she gave birth to not one but two children as I stood there holding her knee, saying encouraging stuff, and steadfastly not looking at what was happening lest I pass out? Anyone can be tough and I think one's reservoir of mental toughness can be built in any number of ways. My wife did't train to give birth, but a lifetime of being a woman in the world definitely creates some mental/emotional/physical callouses that serve them well in the delivery room.
My running has become the way I atone for my "failure to bro" as a younger person. Not because I want to exude a more potent brand of machismo, but because I want to push through the boundaries of reticence and avoidance I erected as a young person and never overcame. Hitting the road, feeling those aches, powering through, loosening up, and eventually feeling it has been a revelatory process. I wish I'd known it as a younger person, but I am glad to be getting a little bit of it now.
Have a great week, everyone. I am looking forward to paying for the privilege of engaging with this community!
That gets to a lot of what I was trying to say. This uber masculine ideal of toughness and strength just gets in the way of what we're trying to accomplish. Finding a place to stand is so, so key. I absolutely resonate with the idea of atonement. (That Catholicism never goes away.) I think where I've made strides is in learning to forgive myself so that I can continue to work at it. Thanks for the thoughtful response, Joe.
oh wow, a lot here.
i think there is a correlation between mental toughness and competition. some may need peers (or foes) in a simulated environment where something tangible is at stake for either winning or losing. i also think there are more than a handful only interested in competing against the inner voice, often with something a little less tangible, but just as important, at stake.
i'm coming to associate mental toughness with, to put it bluntly, not quitting from *the* competition, regardless of the format, that gives you the meaning for living. i think it's okay to miss a free throw in a pressure-filled situation, quit on a race, or even quit on running altogether... you just gotta keep showing up for that ultimate competition.
Excellent points. I came across a phrase recently "Staying with the trouble" that I like a lot. It takes courage to stay with it, wrestle with it, deal with it, instead of running away and hiding. I think there is absolutely a place for that in competition and it's a super healthy way to have an experience that takes you to those places. At the same time, yeah, you got to know when to fold em too and take the L. The question, as you put it, is what do you do next. How do you move on. Keep showing up. Thanks for the thoughtful response, Hoon.
I am not sure I have a sense of what this means in my life, especially as this year turned my own sense of what made me anxious or nervous upside down, so I think I am figuring it out. But, I always admired the Manny Ramirez school of mental toughness - each at bat is the same and the goal is always to get the optimal outcome based on the pitch thrown no matter the situation - hit, walk, HR, sacrifice, etc. and then follow the same process the next time around with "no memory" of the last time. Of course, that school of mental toughness is based on a lot of behind the scenes work, but that ability to just be in the moment always amazed me - the ability to be unfazed and just perform or fail, but start again the next time. Maybe that is mental toughness - never too high or too low so you can always get back or maintain a baseline.
That's a great point about Manny. And what did people say? Oh, it's the triumph of an uncluttered mind without giving credit to the amount of physical work he did and the ability to move on. The point I'm trying to make, and figure out for myself, is that all these things are interrelated and affect us throughout the day. I like the baseline approach, and I also don't think we give ourselves enough credit for maintaining equilibrium. Thanks for engaging with the piece, Will. Know it's kind of heavy.
Great piece.
One thing I've always found is that mental toughness is not the same across the board. I consider myself mentally tough about some things - waking up early, running every day, running long distances, etc... - and mentally weak about others - pushing the pace, pushing myself to place in a race, etc...
I don't really know how to square the two. Maybe there's "winner's toughness" and then just "personal toughness"? Sounds a bit like the distinction you were getting at with your foul shot story.
That's a really interesting point about the space between absolutes and why this conversation is so fascinating to me! The place I'm trying to get to is see all of it as a one space, and within that space we have strengths and weaknesses. I think the next step is identifying weak spots and using the tools we've developed to push ourselves into that next realm. Not to be faster or whatever, but to keep evolving. Thanks, Emmett.
I feel this one deeply.
Aye.
I once had academic association I with a troublesome colleague. Collaboration was just not his style. I eventually understood that he wanted me as his competitor. Maybe I should have been complimented but I didn’t live in his world and did not play his game. I competed with myself.
That's an interesting construction. Who says we're playing the same game, right? The need to find a rival, to me, feels counter productive although I know it works for some people. Good for you for recognizing that distinction and staying true to your path.
Find this one really insightful and it resonates. When I started playing pickup basketball as a young adult, I couldn't really dribble, but I could take all manner of weird flick-off-the-backboard hook shots, because that's what I would do in my backyard as a kid–the ball would end up in my hand a few feet from the basket and I'd just flick it up there and got really good at knowing how it would use the backboard. And when I started ice hockey as an adult, I could skate alright (from rollerblading), but I couldn't stop. But what I could do was stickhandle, because I'd spent hours in my driveway as a kid telling myself I was Pavel Datsyuk and just tapping the puck back and forth to myself. I understood why I was good at those things, but for whatever reason, I've rarely thought about how else they could apply in my life, and how I could use that insight even on things that I didn't practice a ton as a kid–that I could "practice" things, for fun, as an adult, too.
Haha, love it. No one could stop my Tim Hardaway crossover back in the day. Maybe it's because I have a young son, but the thought of joyful play keeps coming back to me in a way that feels powerful.