Genesis

To fight or to flight, this is the question that surrounds me, haunts me as I enter my adult life. I am a youth, an inexperienced and optimistic young male, who is entering the world full of confidence and excitement. Yet hidden under this confidence is great uncertainty that tethers this heart against exploration and freedom. It projects haunting illusions and dreadful tales of failure. It is the ghost in the dark that stalks me when the lights flicker off and I have to run into bed in order to feel safe and secure. My mind, my rationality assures me that I will succeed. Parents, friends, family, they all tell me I will do great, but I feel hollow. It all flows through, a fish net worthy of a hundred fish, but the holes are too large and the fish are able to escape. These uncertainties of mine are magnified to such a scale that they are too large to quell, to capture or control. I cannot help but watch these disasters unfold on the big screen, where the sounds are all too vivid and the consequences are lifelike. The villains seem unconquerable, the mountains too high to climb. For I know that these uncertainties come from a cube, no bigger than a shoebox, but they mesmerize me in that theatre, and thus, they morph into a skyscraper. It’s all in my head of course, the fear of the unknown preventing me from taking action. It makes me believe that something bad will happen to me when in reality if I fail, my life will have no impact at all. 

To set the stage, I have been an avid curler for the majority of my life. 

Allow me to explain what curling is for all of you who are unfamiliar with the sport. Curling is a game that is played on ice. There are rings on both sides of a sheet of ice, comparable in design to a bowling alley, but longer. The object of the game is for both teams to throw each of their eight rocks back to back until all the rocks are thrown. Then the team with their rocks closest to the button, like the centre of a dart board, will score points. It is a game that is played with four players. It involves a lot of strategy, like chess, and it also requires technique; it is a very precise game. 

It all began when I was seven years old and I began to play the sport. I had the same team for seven years. This meant that I had been with the same people for seven years and had a very close relationship with them. The team finally came to an end two years ago and I had no clue what to do with myself and was very uncertain. Preceding this though, was the breakup of the team, which in itself was a disaster. In all my limited wisdom, I was scared to advocate for my own interests. A friend and I wanted to leave the team because we weren’t getting the results we wanted. We lost more than we won and the team never improved. We were stagnant and we wanted to play better, to be with better players. But I was too scared to say that, so I wanted to get the others to agree to dissolve the team. Basically I wanted to manipulate them into doing what I wanted. I wanted them to make the decision. I did not want to be the villain who left the team. Much more though, I was terrified of my decision and the impact it would have on my curling future. What would this mean for my opportunity to play the following year? Would I even find a new team? If so, is it better to not leave and guarantee that I can still play the next year? Without change there is certainty, this is where I am happiest. This is where I am able to develop relationships and grow comfortable with others. I am awkward socially, it takes a long time for me to connect with new people. I struggle with conversations, with knowing what to say next and how to keep people engaged with me. I find it hard to establish relationships but I am much better at maturing them and making them more permanent. So this was my worry about leaving my team. What if I could not find a team or if I do, what if we do not like each other and have a terrible season as a result. 

No matter how bad my initial plan was, it worked. Together the two of us had convinced the other two on my team that we should not play together again. Looking back this seems really cruel of me to do, for it was two of us spewing propaganda at the other two to try to get them to agree with us. We were saying things like school is important and you need to focus on it more if you want to go to university. You see, we knew that they were not the greatest students, that they were struggling in classes and we used it against them. One of them wanted to get a job and we turned that against him too, convincing him of how little free time he would have and how stressed he would be. I feel so much guilt about this event in my life because of the way we approached the situation. We were trying to be manipulative when we should have been direct. 

I have learned a lot since then, about being assertive to get what you want. It is so much easier than being passive and manipulative, attempting to make others make the decisions you are in favour of. It seems so foolish now, but maybe it was the feeling of uncertainty that influenced how we acted. Both of us were worried about the repercussions of leaving the team. Perhaps by stalling we would take longer to break up as a team and this gives us more time to find a new team before we leave our original one. You know what I mean. When you have a job you do not like and are actively searching for job interviews and are applying for a new one before you quit. Yup, that’s me, sneaking around; a betrayer. 

So we ended the team. We both went two ways, my friend Aidan and I looking for a new team and the others focusing on school. In the end it did not work out for the both of us. There were no teams looking for two players, everyone we talked to only needed one player so we had to leave each other. This only exasperated my uncertainty. Not only had I already left my team where I was comfortable, but now I had left my only link to certainty. Looking for three players that were strangers was a very anxious time for me. I was constantly worried about fitting in, about how I was going to contribute to the team. Eventually I hit gold. I was emailing strangers who I knew curled and somebody finally said yes, they actually wanted me on their team. I was so excited, the relief flowed through me like the spring thaw. I was so anxious for months about not getting a team but now that I had one, all my uncertainty fled me. It turned out that we were all strangers to each other, which was even better for me because I did not have to integrate myself into a group of friends. 

We became cohesive really quickly, we may not have been friends or talked much together, but we could work very efficiently. We ended up winning two tournaments as a team and going to provincials. This was probably the most exciting time of my life. I had never gone to anything this important before. It was a weeklong tournament similar to what the professional curlers would do at the elite level. The best part was that it was in Grande Prairie which if you do not know, is an eight hour drive north west from Calgary. 

This was truly one of the most exciting moments of my life. We rented a huge van as a group and all drove up together to save on costs. I remember just how quiet we were the whole way up, we never really were a chatty group. I would just stare out the window for most of the ride, watching the vast forests fly by. It was late February at the time and there was little snow in Calgary then. It was amazing to watch the transition as we drove north as the snow gently returned and the world became colder the further we travelled. It seemed like we were driving into winter as we kept heading north. 

So the week went by and we left disappointed. We played eight games in total and we left with a record of 4-4. We had much higher expectations for ourselves. The team that ended up winning was the only team to lose to us that week. We all knew that we could have won the entire thing and gone to nationals. I had so much anticipation for the moment that we would win, I was so exhilarated and focused that when we were eliminated it was crushing.

 Here’s the thing about blame: It can seem obvious who should be blamed but ultimately everyone is equally deserving of blame. Talk to me about the treaty of Versailles and you will find out my opinion on blaming. But ya, we had a chance to go to the semi finals but our skip missed both of his shots to win the game. We all unfairly blamed him for our loss and we were frustrated for a long time. What saved us was our maturity. We knew that blaming people is the worst thing you can do in the aftermath of failure because that leads to the disintegration of the team itself. I moved on and stopped blaming him. For the problem with grudges is that they only affect yourself. It is so much better to forgive them and move on because a grudge will only impact you alone. Lifting these self made burdens will release the pain and allow you to focus on positive things, to look forwards, not always backwards. It is better to let them fade than to breed them and let them fester within you. Do you really want to become Inigo Montoya, or do you want to pursue a fulfilling life and achieve satisfaction? That is what I did. I found the experiences I had to be wonderful and will always remember them as good times. I can look at it nostalgically rather than a regret. 

In all uncertainty really sucks. It tries to prevent you from living your life. It tries to encapsulate you in your worry and render you immobile to change. If I had been too scared to even attempt to leave my original team I never would have had these successes and experiences. Things worked out for me this time, but they will not always work. The chance you take is so important though. “Sometimes the opportunity is waiting for you,” a quote by IB Adeleke.