diligence and dedication

What is it to be a dad? I don’t know but being one does teach you a lot of things. Having patience for one. It can be extremely rewarding and frustrating at the same time and to live with these ups and downs is a part and parcel of being a dad. It compounds with the fact that parenting is a moving target as your child grows up every day. They respond differently and more importantly I as a parent, need to think differently. I have to approach each situation differently, every time it repeats or every new day.

It’s not an easy things and it’s not that it comes naturally. In fact the natural behavior would be to deteriorate your response with the frustration of repetition. At this point, I have to control my instincts and think deeper and reach for resilience from within. I am sure Jispa too needs serious resilience from within to deal with her parents as well. And this will only get tested again and again when she grows up and is independent and doesn’t require us for her growth or wellbeing.

Today morning as I was dropping Jispa to swimming for her morning swim and I reailsed that she had forgotten her flipper bag. Again. Oh dear. There was no point in scolding her or anything. She told me that she will simply borrow a fellow swimmers bag and continue. As I left her and went back home I couldn’t help thinking – Jispa reached her national glory thanks to Jasmine doggedness. We put her in swimming and then the program took over. Jasmine found her calling in Jispa’s program and supported her. We drove her to every swim meet, we sat in the background and fed her, we got her ready for school and dropped her, we cooked her special food and basically ferried her every where and got her to stick to her swimming program.

Left to her own, I don’t think the kid would have done it. Today as we have relaxed our oversight into her program she has slipped and how. She doesn’t train as hard, she bunks at will and we realize - she is not destined for pushing herself to achieve greatness. She is a good person. A nice toughish kind of kid but she is not the natural born self-motivated sportsperson who can continually achieve greatness by virtue of relentless unsupervised practice. She is not eklavya who can make a statue of her teacher and practice away. In Many ways she reminds me of me.

I think my dad would have said that I have never fulfilled my potential as a kid growing up. In sports or in studies. Procrastination was my thing and diligence was never it. It’s only when I grew up in life and when life kicked me in the backside that I realized the value of diligence and dedication. Anything that does not have it will not get achieved. And never to your satisfaction. I think Jispa achieved what she did in swimming was because Jasmine showed these two things in helping Jispa grow with the program. My job was diligence and dedication to Jasmine’s cause. It wasn’t my thing. Even today I tell Jispa, its ok, relax, live your life, have a childhood, and don’t bother training so hard now.

Jispa will grow up and understand these things. She is better than most other kids. I am sure. She can still manager her swimming and her studies and the simple fact that she continued to swim all these years, makes me convinced that she has it in her to grow. I am not criticizing her but making the difference between kids who are good (damn good) and kids who are great. Look at the current Indian captain. After breaking into the cricket team and the big league did her realize that he has to work even harder and train like crazy if he has to break into the all-time great lists. He was a chubby child and now he is a pinnacle of fitness and hard work. I was a lazy worker and now I put in 12 hours a day trying to get things done. It takes time to grow into what you want to do in life and when you get it, then you can go for it.

I am sure Jispa will be a great coach or a good teacher or an awesome worker. She should do well. She has a lovely disposition that she got from her mother, an understated ambition (mother again) and an ability to explain her thoughts (now that’s me). This is her and I am quite proud of her. She is a far better kid than I was at her age.

Just a few days ago we had this conversation on which subjects to choose and which to drop. I told her to screw career and follow what you love. Finally she chose basis the best teachers she would get. That’s a smart choice. All subjects are good. It’s the teacher who makes us love a subject. Now she chose physics on the basis of the teacher and immediately she loves it. That’s a great choice kid. Connect to people and you will always be rewarded. Pick people you love and work with them. Then it’s always easier to handle every issue that comes your way.