I hated running by the end of high school. It was so extreme that when I graduated in 2015, I told myself I’d never run again. But this desire to avoid the practice of such a healthy activity was born not from its physical demands but the environment it came from.
My cross country coach in high school was a somewhat high pitched older man who had a passion for the sport of running. I never quite got along with his coaching style, and despite his individual success as a runner, there wasn’t a sense of encouragement and positive challenge that I desired from a coach. At the end of the day, I don’t want to be too hard on him – I’m sure he had good intentions, and I also believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt. But what my coach taught me was something he didn’t intend to do, which was show me the way I wanted to make an impact in the world. I have always wanted to make an influence, and watching his coaching style showed me how I wanted to do it differently as a teacher. It’s part of the reason why I decided to go into education.
All these years later, I’m thankfully making that dream come true. It started way differently than I thought with a worldwide pandemic affecting my first two years, but it hasn’t stopped me. And it’s taught me the importance of negative motivators, or using things you don’t like to spur on positive change. Not every accomplishment has to come by being inspired by someone or something, it can also come through wanting to make a change. When you use the negative to start something positive, you can make a big difference. You can live life on the flipside.
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