A Good Day to be a Dutchman

Saturday is race day. We all have our routines…

My teammate Macy only eats oatmeal before races.

Union’s favorite steeplechaser, Tim Woods, always jumps in the air three times on the start line.

My friend Arden “Ardo” Kellner insists on tying his right spike before his left.

Yup, runners are weird…and even though pre-race routines rarely make any logical sense, they’re important. They provide us with an illusion of control in a time of total internal chaos and anxiety. Pre-race routines help us manage the pressure of expectations in order to meet our goals.

When I was a freshman on the Union cross-country team I met a boy named JZ who had a pre-race routine that was really out there. Every race day JZ would log on to Facebook in the morning and make his status the same tag line: “It’s a good day to be a Dutchman.” Saturday would roll around every week and we’d all get another virtual reminder that that day was in fact a good day to be a Dutchman… and the next eight or so Saturday’s would be too. Why did everyone on Facebook need to know what kind of day it was to be a Dutchman?

We all gave this kid a lot of crap for his pre-race routine. His Saturday morning Facebook slogan became a kind of inside joke on the team. Funny enough, JZ had the last laugh, ending the season as our top runner on the men’s team and with Liberty League honors. Was JZ on to something with his unusual routine?

From watching JZ over the years, I have begun to believe in the “Good day to be a Dutchman” philosophy: If you can wake up in the morning and tell yourself (and all of your Facebook friends) that it’s a good day to be a Dutchman, then it probably will be. If you can convince yourself that you’re going to be successful, you’re already well on your way to the finish line.

As I sit at the airport getting ready to board the plane to Siem Reap I think of race day. I think of goals and expectations. I think of the ways in which my teammates over the years have used their pre-race routines as a form of comfort when everything seems uncertain. And I think of JZ. I think of the ways in which you can push yourself forward by building yourself up.

Being a Generation 11 Minerva Fellow is going to take some serious strength and confidence. Just like race day, there are goals and expectations. In my Minerva Fellow application I wrote about two main goals that I would want to accomplish if I was chosen to be a Minerva Fellow: I want to give and I want to learn. My application stated, “I believe that in order to really help someone you need to develop a relationship in which there is mutual learning and development on both sides.” Something that initially attracted me to the Minerva Fellowship program is its focus on creating these kinds of relationships. I’m excited to give what I can to The Global Child and I know that I will learn a lot from the students and staff at TGC throughout the next 9 months.

Truthfully, when people ask me what I will be doing in Cambodia I am hesitant to tell them that I am teaching English. I don’t want to think of this fellowship solely as an opportunity to teach someone a skill that they don’t have access to. From working with social entrepreneurship organizations in the past I have learned that everyone has something to give to someone else. At the core, this fellowship isn’t about going into a community thinking that you are going to make a big impact. To me, the Minerva Fellowship is about working with people to develop relationships for mutual growth. Isabelle and I have talked a lot about how we don’t want to impose our own views on The Global Child. We want to work with the organization to learn what they want and need from us.

In terms of expectations, I’m trying not to expect much at all. If there’s anything I’ve learned from race days over the years (and from the experiences of Fellows10) it’s that expectations rarely line up with reality. All you can do is the best you can with what ever happens.

As for now, I follow my own pre-race routines. I got out of bed this morning on the right side of the bed. I ate a plain bagel for breakfast. I tied my hair tightly into a bun at the top of my head. I guess when it comes down to it you can have thousands of pre-race routines. You can try so many different approaches to curb your anxieties about what is ahead. But the bottom line is when the time comes and the race is about to begin, you lose control. All you can do is show up on the starting line JZ-style: prepared, confident and strong; ready to run full speed ahead.

I am toeing the line now.

The gun is about to go off.

The adventure is about to begin.

It’s a hell of a good day to be a Dutchman…