“Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate this very hour, and he stopped suffering.” (Hesse, 127). The prompt for today’s discussion board entry entailed comparing our journey to Siddhartha’s - even including looking back at our road map for guidance. I struggled initially with how I would do this, but after I came across the aforementioned line, I knew exactly how my journey was similar to Siddhartha’s.
As I have written about before and many of you know, I suffered an extreme back injury one and a half years ago. Before that time I had been a good swimmer; very dedicated to my craft and very motivated to achieve the goals and expectations that not only I had for myself, but others had for me. After I hurt my back, I spent a year and a half trying to salvage whatever “it” was that had made me a fast swimmer in the first place. I went through several stages of “grief”, I guess you could call it, after I was injured. The first few months I spent in denial that I was really hurt. I didn’t believe it when doctor after doctor told me that I should not swim anymore or run ever again. I refused to believe that I was even hurt that badly, refused to believe that my injury was anything more than a passing phase. Then, when it became clear that I was dealing with something serious, I got angry. I had no patience for anyone around me, I became withdrawn and quiet at school and with friends. There it was, my senior year of high school – what is supposed to be the happiest time of my teenage life – and I was miserable. 
Almost a year since getting my injury, I finally was given a diagnosis on what was wrong with me. That was when my real troubles started. ‘Now that I know how to fix this, everything is going to be fine,’ I thought to myself. The only problem? Being virtually without training for almost a year had put me severely out of shape. I spent the next six months beating my body into the ground, trying desperately to get back into shape. I worked harder than I ever had before in my life: physically and mentally. I trained constantly, my nutrition was flawless, I met with a sports psychologist regularly, watched video after video of Olympic races trying to memorize the technique of champions. I became obsessed with finding my way back to where I had been. I became obsessed with becoming good again.
I see so much of my struggle in Siddhartha’s. Though I never felt as strongly as to threaten suicide like Siddhartha, I did feel as he did, “so lost and so forsaken,” (Hesse, 84). He had spent his entire life on a journey seeking spiritual enlightenment, just as I had spent my entire life on a journey to become an Olympic swimmer. I felt so much pressure to please the people around me, to not let them down, that I tortured myself to reach that goal. 
The change, for me, came exactly as it did to Siddhartha. I realized that putting all of this pressure on myself to become good again was futile. My entire life had become about racing the clock, getting myself back into shape and injury-free in time to compete in college, in time to make the Olympic team. I was putting all of this pressure on myself to perform the way I used to so I wouldn't let the people around me down and I stopped remembering why I had loved the sport in the first place. It wasn't because of the times or the gold medals or the glory. After all, “Were not all sufferings then time, and were not all self-torments and personal fears time?” (Hesse, 101). I was a swimmer because I love the water, because I love the friends I've made through it, because I love to race. Siddhartha and I both realized that this journey we were so desperately trying to make reach a “perfect” climax was not something that can be forced. It is something that - when you let go, relax, and just let it flow like a river - comes naturally. 
Sure enough, last weekend at the Big 12 Championships, I did just that. I told myself not to care about what my time was in my race or what place I got. I told myself that if I didn't go fast, it would be okay, that the constraints of time were not going to do anything other than stress me out. I told myself, ‘Just race, spin.’ I finally swam faster than I did before my back was hurt, I finally felt the confidence I felt before my injury, and I finally felt content and completely pressure-free. “It took me many years to lose my spirit, to unlearn thinking and forget the unity,” says Siddhartha to himself at one point in the novel (Hesse, 91). I feel this is true for me as well. “I’ve had to experience despair […] in order to be able to experience divine grace,” (Hesse, 91) and it has definitely been worth it. Sometimes, Siddhartha and I both learned, letting the river take you where it will (or, in my case, the pool) and letting go is the key to the whole journey. Now I am content in knowing, as Siddhartha did, that "this path is foolish; it moves in hoops, and perhaps it is going around in a circle. Let it go where it likes; I want to follow it." (Hesse, 91).
(This is an interview I did exactly one month before I hurt my back. The person I was back then was confident and I swam effortlessly. It took a lot of struggles and a lot of pushing myself way too hard, but i finally learned how to achieve that zen-like state again and am finally back to where I want to be. video courtesy of:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF6jDVgjmvY).
No comments:
Post a Comment