Monday, March 19, 2012

Off the Path

Tell your kids to “get off their path.”
That was the message from this 75 year old CEO I went to see.  A Brit who ran public companies on three continents said we are all born on a path, and all too often we stick to it.  “A banker’s son is born in Boston goes to Princeton, to Wall Street and to Florida where he plays golf and dies.”
He told me of a young man who came to see him asking for career advice.  The freshly minted graduate came to his office with a report card full of A’s and a specialty in Geography.  He asked the new graduate:  “Where is the Irrawaddy River?” And when the young man fumbled and guessed wrong, the old CEO admonished him: “Go do something!  You’ve spent all your time in a classroom.  The Irrawaddy is in Myanmar (Burma) and I know that because I swam across it.”
He questioned the rush to leave school and get a job, commenting that young people believe they are entitled to a job upon graduation.  “And now that the jobs aren’t there, they’re angry." 
“Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains,” is his favorite quote.
Sometimes your children go off their path, and then you wish they hadn’t.  That is the emotion every time our son hits the Rugby pitch.  The season is a demolition derby of broken bones, concussions, bloody noses and torn ears. 

When the final weekend arrives the theme of my pre-game pep talk is victory is walking off the field under your own weight.  Tennis tryouts are a week away, a sport where I see a brighter future.

But he is fifteen and like everyone his age, he is indestructible.  So when I lose his jersey under a pile of sweating boys, I gasp  When I see a large man/child run off, his first stride atop my son’s barren ankle, I want to jump the fence. 


When I hear a “pop” after his wind is shaken by a shoulder to the gut, all I can do isturn my head.

The tournament ends with a second place finish and an overall healthy corpus.  And we move on watching him take these detours.  Hoping these risks allow him to walk his own path, even with a small limp.

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