Day 3 - Fumbling at the 1 yd line

A small lesson in football (American one)

In football, the bigger objective is to get a touchdown, where the ball gets either carried in or thrown into the end zone and someone hopefully catches it... more often than not, it is in the red zone (20 yds and closer to the end zone) that the defense really tightens up, and very often, the offense gets stopped at the 1 yard line (or worse lose the ball to the opposite team - called a fumble). They then opt to kick a field goal... As you can probably tell, I am a great football fan (Go Giants!), but there is a principle here... which I talked to my son about yesterday...

He hates it when I use football analogies, and accuses me of ruining the game for him, because now football reminds him of school or homework or both! I don't mind, and chug along, we are both passionate about football... He was finishing up some daily homework and I asked him if all the work is complete. He said yes, and showed me the papers... all done, but not arranged by date to hand in. I asked him, can you please arrange them, so it is easy to grade, and also automatically check for any missing work. He sighed and whined and said he was tired, and wanted to get to bed early. I insisted (as you probably would have guessed by now). I said I am going to time it and show you, that it is not as hard as it looks nor takes as long as you think it is going to take. It took him 3 minutes (plus the 5 minute lecture). I asked him how he felt when he saw the work, all neat and prepped. He said it made him feel good. I said, how hard is it really, to put in that 3 minutes of work, after you have already spent a few hours doing the work, just to finish it up, nice and neat? Why leave your touchdown and settle for a field goal after reaching the 1 yard line? or worse, miss something real important with carelessness and fumble the ball away? It is the mental fatigue that sets in when the job is done... pushing through that is the difference maker.

Graphs that talk

He walked home into an empty house today as I had not returned from my walk. He couldn't wait the 10 minutes it took me to get home, and called right away and said breathlessly...mom, guess what I scored on the algebra test? I said, since you called me, I would venture a centum (he says what? I said that is what we called a full score in India), he says nope, >95 and <100, so I guessed 98 and I was right! He was so happy! I was happy for him, that he was happy, and he was feeling good about it. He said Mom, I drew the graph and waited for it to talk to me like you said it would, and then answered the questions... I asked did it talk to you? he said yes, and guess what I was listening this time.... it is a beautiful thing...

Report for the day

Many of the homework done today, had to be repeatedly corrected till I was satisfied, and he was fully happy with them too... I said again, please let's not do all the work, and not take it all the way. It is such wasted effort, and you won't be happy with the results. I don't think we will hit the law of diminishing returns any time soon, so it is ok to expect better for more effort at least while in eighth grade!

My mantra for today Sat Chit Ananda (Existence, Consciousness, Bliss) was totally on point as was the centering thought, I focus on what I want to attract into my life. I am on the board for our local swim club that my daughter swims in, and the board meeting took 5 hours today. I barely made the 5 mile walk, but I was determined, for at least the blog, I had to finish it, and I did!