With Awareness Comes Choice

Two weeks ago I listened to a keynote speech delivered to 28 high school student-athletes at an awards ceremony at Georgetown University.  The messenger: A Georgetown Alumni and Positive Coaching Alliance Trainer.  His message: "I'm not going to give you any advice tonight. Why?  Because what I realized as I was preparing for this speech is that while most of our parents/guardians, coaches and teachers do give us great advice growing up, we are unable to recognize its value until we have had the life experience that mirrors the message."  Translation:  You'll get it later, recognize its importance and say "ah, that's what my blank were trying to telling me."   Sometimes we just have to be ready for the message. Around midnight last night I watched the  2005 commencement speech that was delivered to students at Stanford University.   A very dear friend of mine had told me earlier in the evening what an impact it had on her and she w...

"Wow Pam, that takes a lot of courage."  I have heard this line many times in the past two weeks as I have shared my plans of uprooting and heading cross country for a few months.  Each time I hear it,  I laugh a little, shrug my shoulders, raise my eyebrows and say "really?"  Usually the person follows up the initial comment with something like "many of us would like to do what you are doing but...," and then the blanks are filled in with anything from "but I have a family now, or but I just started a new job, or but I don't think I could, or just but..."  No one really ever says "I would love to do that but I don't have the courage."  So I ask myself, why do they say to me that it takes courage? What are they really trying to say, about my experiences or their own?  I always find myself engaging in a conversation with them (or myself) about the nature of courage, and it is no big surprise but having courage isn't as strai...