"Your groups are nowhere near indicative of how well you're shooting."
It was my sophomore year in college and we were amidst the era of the major motion picture phenomenon, The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Enrollment in the UCLA recreation archery class was up ten-fold. But I wasn't attracted to it because I wanted to be an elf, I don't think. I just thought it would be a super neat random skill to have. Archery class was my first foray into the world of martial arts, and it did not take long for me to figure out just why it is considered an art. I worked diligently for those brief months on technique, on replicating time after time the beautiful curves and lines of body, bow, and arrow that comprise a solid shot, smoothing out the graceful motion of drawing the arrow back, perfecting the appearance of effortlessness of the release. My instructor noticed my labors and with a detectable tone of pride in his disciple, rewarded me with a lovely compliment that absolutely made my day.
And so began the Make Someone's Day Project. Each day for a week, I endeavored to bring the warm and fuzzies to one person. Surprisingly, I found this to be an incredibly easy task. During that week, I told to people I cared about how I felt about them, I wrote short notes to friends to express exactly what I appreciated about them, I brought thoughtful gifts to people I knew they would enjoy. I made people smile. And it was all so easy. It just took being mindful of others' interests and feelings, and being receptive of simple opportunities that would make others happy. And sometimes, it was as easy as letting them know, in some way or another, of a very simple truth about the role they played in my life: that they make an impression on me, and that in their own way, they make me better.
As we trudge through our daily lives, we are so often caught up in our own dramas that we forgo ubiquitous opportunities to bring cheer to others. These missed opportunities are not only for the happiness of others, but also our own. The Make Someone's Day project taught me not only about how simple it was to make others happy, but also how the exercise of making others happy brought happiness to myself. So now I shall revisit this old project and resolve daily, and throughout my life, to seek out these opportunities.
How can I make your day?
May 30, 2011
Dots on Maps
A few weeks ago, while in transit to the zoo, a familiar voice calls out my name: "Joy?" I turn to look and there it is, that friendly face. "WILL?!" Will, of Let's Sit in the Rain fame. We are both bamboozled, both thinking, what are you doing HERE?? I met Will my sophomore year of college in LA. I consider him a good friend, but we hadn't talked in three years and hadn't seen each other in over five. We had long since lost track of each other. And then we come to find out that we have been living a five minute walk away from each other for the past eight months, in Cambridge, MA, on the other side of the country from our former lives. All the while, I had been aware of the coming relocation of Will's former roommate Eric to the Boston area. When I think back on life in the UCLA dorms, still prominent in my mind are the midnight drives to Jack-in-the-Box our little trio would make. Come August, we three will be reunited in a different place, in a different stage of life, having all of us grown and changed in different ways. I am excited.
In the movie The Adjustment Bureau, the suited angels (or whatever they are) carry around little books that track life trajectories of those humans they are overseeing. Sometimes I picture us all moving along as dots on similar maze-like maps (except they are half blank, since I am not a believer of fate and destiny), each charting our courses, twisting and turning this way and that, finding each other, leaving each other. And there are those rare instances when dots part and go on their respective separate paths, and then randomly converge again down the road, unknowingly and wonderfully.
Assuming free will and thinking of us all as dots on a half-blank maze-like map, converging at times, I sometimes think about how fortuitous (or not) it is that we find the particular people that we find. We are touched by those who come into our lives, even if we eventually leave each other. From these other dots, we learn about each other and ourselves; we love and we hurt; we learn and we grow. We affect each other's trajectories, we change each other's lives.
Let us all make the most of these convergences.
May 26, 2011
Black Belt
A couple of weeks ago, I sat as a spectator at the MIT Sport Taekwondo Club's first dan black belt test. This was the second black belt test I've watched, the first being the December 2010 CW black belt test. The first dan black belt test is among the most intense things I've witnessed (at least among the things that I could eventually see myself doing). The candidates are truly worked. The point is to push them to their limits, and then push them a little farther--sometimes much farther. They are directed to do form after form, drill after drill, set after set of pushups. Everything must be precise and crisp and strong.
And then comes the sparring.
The first time I witnessed this, I couldn't believe it. When comes time for sparring, a large gang of already-initiated black belts of various degrees throw on their gear and line up, awaiting their turn against a candidate. Sparring, though generally short in duration, is a very exhausting activity. A sparring round runs from 1 to 3 minutes and a match consists of 2 or 3 rounds, with some brief amount of time for rest between rounds. At a first dan black belt test, each candidate spars something like six rounds against their senior classmates and instructors, with their only breaks being the 10-or-so seconds it takes for a new opponent to shuffle in. By the time sparring starts, they are already gasping for breath. Their opponents are always fresh, while they are on the brink of collapse. Yet, they go on kicking. At the CW test in December, a candidate temporarily dislocated his shoulder, and another candidate caught a back kick to the chest and was completely floored. The shoulder popped back in; the guy on the floor picked himself up; they kept kicking. Watching the sparring portion of the test, you can see it so clearly in each candidate: they really want this.
After sparring, they're coming down the home stretch. Before they are asked to throw whatever crazy kick it is they are asked to throw at a wooden board, each candidate takes his or her turn in the center of the mat. They are asked to give a speech, to tell everyone what this black belt means to them, and more importantly, what taekwondo means to them. At the MIT test, my friend talked about how tkd went from something he just thought he'd try, to becoming something he wanted to get really good at, to becoming his passion. At CW in December, things got emotional. They came to taekwondo from different places, from different stages of life, but they all converged that day. Their love for taekwondo, and for the CW community, was shared. As they each took their turn standing against that post in the middle of our dojang, facing the audience, expressing this love, shedding tears, I was so struck by the passion and love in that room. And, of course, being a sympathetic crier, I shed tears of my own for the first time in that room.
In a couple years' time, I will be asked to stand in the middle of our dojang, exhausted and spent, and to explain what taekwondo means to me. It will take me that long to piece together the feelings, and then the words. What taekwondo means to me will continually evolve, I'm sure. It has already gone from something I just thought I'd try out, to becoming something I wanted to get really good at, to becoming my passion. I found it at the perfect time in my life, and it provided me with all the things that I needed. It provided me with routine and stability and a healthy outlet to relieve my stresses. It gave me a supportive community filled with people to love and people who love me. It helped bring me perspective, and inspire difficult but great life changes. It gave me the courage to fight for my happiness in the present and the future. What taekwondo means to me ... it means so much. And this is just the beginning.
May 13, 2011, 1:00 a.m.
And Then There Was Taekwondo.
At work, I am trying to finish up a project that I should have finished up a month ago. I went into the office today determined to be uber productive, to stay late if I had to, and to get this memo done right quick. But my brain just refused to stick on the interaction between state and federal procedural requirements in remedial action. Sure, it is definitely not the most interesting assignment I've had, and the general dryness of this project is a big reason why it is taking me so long to knock it off my list. But today, my focus was giving way to a more specific impediment. Today, when my eyes glazed over, what I was imagining in front of me in place of the legalese-laden computer screen was the helmeted head of a blurry-faced sparring partner ... and my foot coming down on his face.
And now, well past my bedtime, I am in front of a computer screen again, this time reflecting on my first in-class tournament at CW Taekwondo at Boston, all while icing my battle wounds. Though I did not get to kick anyone in the face (they wouldn't let us!), it was a very good night. But then again, tonight was not much out of the ordinary since I found taekwondo. Not many people can say that they have a place where they can go filled with people they completely enjoy, where they can kick the crap out of their best friends, and then go out afterward for drinks and laughs. This place exists for me. It gives me something to look forward to every day. And for that, I am indescribably grateful.
I have so much more to say about taekwondo and the role it has played in my life these past few months. But as I said, it's well past my bedtime.
May 8, 2011
And, We're Back.
Thinking a lot about how to restart this, after a nearly two-year hiatus. Practically speaking, given the sparseness and brevity of the more recent archived pages, it has been well over three years. Revisiting my old entries, I am reminded of the experiences I've had in my early adulthood, the way these experiences made me feel, the people I've met, the way these people made me feel. Recorded in these pages are some of the highest highs and lowest lows of my post-college life. And now, I've let years go by unrecorded; this unentered time was a period of important growth. Missing are the ups and downs of a world-class educational experience; the many adventures that were had in New York City; the rollercoaster of job hunting in a weakened economy; the start of my career in environmental law; my move to Boston; and the beginning, middle, and end of my most significant relationship to date.
And now I am having new and wonderful experiences in this new stage of my life. I have come to a decision: I cannot let these times go unrecorded. And so, here I am, back.