By G.
Photo by Katarina Šikuljak on Unsplash
“Do you think he’s going to like it?” I asked as my partner lugged an tiny eggplant-colored two-wheeler in through the front door.
“I guess we’ll find out.”
Not exactly the words I wanted to hear after spending too much on a pre-owned pedal bike from Craigslist, which is not exactly renowned for its generous return policies. Our four year old had spent lock-down learning to basically do backflips on his balance bike--alarming strangers as he tried out terrifying flavors of “Look, mama, no hands!” If we didn’t figure out a way to slow him down, we were headed toward another punch on our Cedars-Sinai Marina Del Rey Frequent Visitor card. (Buy five ER procedures, get the sixth one free!)
But it wasn’t too many days before I caught my kid, in Spiderman chonies and nothing else, gingerly “riding” his bike in the backyard--tipping from side to side as he first tried one foot on the pedal, then the other. After a few laps around the yard (which is basically turning in a circle, the yard is quite smol), he must’ve sensed me watching him.
“Help me.”
“Can you ask nicely?”
“Will you please help me?”
I thought I might conjure some bicycle-riding pedagogy in the five steps from the stove to the backdoor, but all I came up with as I put my hand under the seat and steadied him was, “Put your feet on the pedals and push down. Keep your eyes straight ahead. You got this.”
He didn’t got it. Not right then. But literally five minutes later--or maybe the next day, “time” is a relic from before--my partner took him to an empty church parking lot to practice and, within nanoseconds, I had a video on my phone of my kid gliding over that consecrated asphalt like a BMX bomber legend.
I watched that 45-second video twelve times in a row. I couldn’t stop thinking about how he was at no point deterred by fears of falling, or looking silly, or of not being “a natural.” He wanted to learn to ride a pedal bike, he worked hard, he practiced, and he figured it out. Also, being tiny, his center of mass is closer to the ground, making endeavors like bike-riding easier to pick up, but that’s neither here nor there. The fact is, he didn’t let his fear of failing get in the way.
Through no effort on my part, my kid has something I didn’t acquire until adulthood: a growth mindset. Coined by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, the term describes the belief that anyone can develop skills through hard work and persistence. Which...no duh. But I think, if we’re honest, a lot more of us are actually more mired in a fixed mindset--the belief that people either have it or they don’t. People who have a growth mindset are able to harness what Dr. Dweck calls “the power of yet,” while those with a fixed mindset are paralyzed by the “tyranny of now.”
I dare you to come up with a phrase that better describes the current moment. Put “The Tyranny of Now” on 2020’s luggage. It’s a whole mood. I know I’m not the only one who has felt immobilized by uncertainty and anxiety, fear and disappointment. I know I’m not the only one who disintegrates into my couch night after night to re-watch The Good Place until the storm blows over. But this isn’t a cold front...this is a new ice age. And while I’m not really a “mind over matter” person when it comes to, like, epidemiology or elections (OMG, wear a mask and vote!), I do think flexing a growth mindset--channeling that “power of yet”--can help us traverse this frozen hellscape. I know because I didn’t always think this way.
I was a “gifted child.” (Insert eyeroll.) Growing up, I thought any praise I received was attributable to my innate abilities, which I owed to genes and luck. Any setbacks I faced were failures to live up to my potential. Even when I did well, I always felt bad for not doing better. And when I did poorly, my first inclination was always to give up.
As an adult, I’ve made a conscious effort to not be that guy. If there’s something I want to try, I try it--capoeira, calligraphy, winged eyeliner, sewing, cooking, graphic design, sketch comedy-writing, and, most recently, skateboarding (“at my age?!” you clutch your pearls and ask?). One could plot my early attempts at these activities somewhere on a spectrum between “kind of embarrassing, but OK” and “dangerously bad at this, please stop.” And, every time, I’m disappointed to not be above average right out of the gate. But real life is not The Karate Kid, where you can be cutely terrible until something *clicks* and you are suddenly a Champion™ despite still being kind of bad. (Don’t @ me.) In real life, replacing a fixed mindset with a growth mindset is a conscious, recursive process.
Just as my kid was picking up the art of the pedal bike, I happened to be recovering from one of my more painful failures. Like, literally painful. During an uncharacteristic and unwarranted burst of confidence, I asked my partner to teach me how to skateboard. He obliged, despite the fact that he 100 percent should have known better. At first it was going fine, and then, suddenly, it was going fast. As my speed picked up, my self-assurance tanked. The board wobbled a bit before flying out from under me. I went down, breaking my fall with my left kneecap. I said a swear, then got up and dusted myself off. I tried to take a step, but my body was like nope! I did not support this choice, and now I will not support your weight. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.
I did eventually coax my leg into hobbling me home. The swelling didn’t stop as the day went on, and I eventually found myself sitting in the waiting room of Cedars-Sinai Marina Del Rey explaining to Natalie the PA why I was back in her ER for the second time that week. (The earlier visit was just for your standard forehead/stereo cabinet mishap. A story for another time!)
After an X-ray, an MRI, a visit with an orthopedist, and a four-digit hospital bill, I learned that my injury was just a bad bone contusion. Painful, but not serious. “Skateboarding is really dangerous,” said the X-ray tech, the orthopod, and Natalie the PA. Which...yeah. I know. But all pandemic long, my family has been fleeing from mundanity on bikes and boards with me trotting behind them. I don’t want to trot anymore. I want to fly.
I asked my partner for a skateboard for my birthday. And a helmet, of course. And some pads. I’m not going to give up. Especially not now--during a time most of us will call one of the most prolonged difficult periods of our lives. I want to seize and amplify the power of yet, this time with protective gear!
When I got back on the skateboard, my kid gave me some pointers: “Just get on the board, push with your feet, and balance. You got this.”
And if that’s not good advice for riding out a Very Bad Time, I don’t know what is. As downright reasonable as it would be to go into sleep mode until this is all over, we can’t let the tyranny of now choke out any spark of growth, hope, or joy. This is my personal endorsement for trying--anything--even if you’re bad, even if you fail, even if the world falls apart around you.
I’m not great at skating yet, but soon I’ll be at least as sure of myself on my board as my kid is on his pedal bike. I’m not comfortable going out in the world yet, but I’m more confident navigating a Saturday morning COVID crowd at Target than I was a few months ago. We may not have a vaccine or reliable treatment for this virus yet, but the world’s brightest minds are working so that we will.
All we have to do is get on the board. Push with our feet. Keep our eyes straight ahead. And balance. We got this.
Love this piece, Greta. Wisdom and humor such as yours will get us through this.
I realized after reading this that I have a fixed mindset about this country. Now I'm trying to repent.