Here We Go Again

 

I was planning to write this on Sunday but was a bit distracted by the Bills vs. Steelers game. All of Bills Mafia was hopeful for an opening season win, but that did not happen. Like so many fans of the Bills and teams in other sports not used to winning, the high optimism for a Super Bowl trip was quickly tempered with thoughts of here we go again. Yes, this is only week one. Like most of us tend to do, we often temper our joy and excitement with thoughts of something going wrong as a kind of self-defense mechanism. Before I dive into that more, I need to give all those that aren’t Bills fans some background.

A number of NFL pundits have chosen the Bills to be contenders since they went to the AFC Championship last year.  The last time that happened was in 1993. Having grown up in rural Western New York, about 45 miles from Buffalo, my youth was flooded with the Bills and to a lesser extent the Sabres. When I was young, saying the Bills were bad would be an understatement.  That all changed when Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith, Andre Reed, Thurman Thomas and so many others came to town.  We all know the story.  The Bills went to four straight Super Bowls.  After losing the first one by a missed field goal (wide right anybody), they lost the next three badly.  When many of the Bills best players retired a few years later, the winning went with them. It would be another 20 years until the team made the playoffs. Despite all the hope that next year would be better, the return to losing had a psychological effect on most fans.

If you have read through the short history, you are probably asking yourself so what does this have to do with anything, no less education or children. I noted earlier that we often temper our expectations.  Even in moments of excitement and joy, many of us have thoughts that something bad must be coming.  As if the universe is going to make sure that we aren’t too happy or too confident.  When something bad happens, we think that there must be two more bad things coming as “bad things happen in threes.” We think this way because we are trying to protect our ego and feelings from pain and hurt. It’s almost as if we are trying to numb both the good and bad feelings so that neither ever get to one extreme or another. If we are really, really happy, our brain has learned that when something bad does happen, it will hurt that much more. What we don’t realize is, we are holding ourselves back from truly living.  We are holding ourselves back from taking chances and maybe pursuing a new endeavor or passion because we are concerned with being hurt maybe by disappointment, ridicule, or embarrassment.  What we don’t realize is we just might be modeling and passing on this defense mechanism to our children.

When we are young, we are excited by most everything. All the newness and curiosity propel us to ask questions and explore our environment. Nothing warms a heart more than seeing a smiling child.  We send our little ones off to school trusting they are in good hands. Mostly they come home excited to go back the next day.  As they age, they seem less and less excited about school.  They also start to worry what others think of them. School becomes less enjoyable for any number of reasons. One thing I have noticed during my years as a student, teacher, and administrator, us adults tend to temper their expectations, sometimes talking about how things will be in the “real world.” We fail to realize that many of our students already know how unkind the real world can be. Instead of being honest that we aren’t perfect, and failure is a normal part of life, we try to lower their expectations to try and protect them or maybe ourselves.  What we should be doing instead is telling them to give it their best effort, try again with some tweaks if the first time didn’t work, and keep on trying. Push them to chase their dreams even if it doesn’t go as planned and enjoy the journey with all it’s ups and downs. We are only here for a relatively short time, so we need to make the best of it for us and all those that follow.