Beware the strength and speed of youth

Lone wolf and cub was a pretty violent kung fu series in the 70's.

It had those wonderfully tense moments of eyes locking with the eyes of an adversary before a duel.

I watched it recently on You tube. I was pretty horrified by how gory and brutal the body count was.

Nevetheless, I recall a quote, "beware the strength and speed of youth". Said in a serious kung fu voice, it sounded pretty cool.

Maybe I should have recalled this when I volunteered to participate in the parents 100 metre race at my children's school fete.

I trundled down the track, breathing in the dust of the other dad's that had finished a long time before I had gotten half way down. I realised that being an older dad has its challenges. I also realised, it's not just 'beware the strength and speed of youth', it's 'beware the strength and speed of my own fantasies of who I believe myself to be'.

Rogers outlines a Venn diagram of who we believe we are in one circle and who we actually are in another circle. If the circles are largely overlapping we are probably in a solid position. If the circles only slightly overlap we are probably likely to experience psychic tension.

My psychic tension was pretty low as I trundled down the track. Thankfully I realised the others were far younger and I was only doing this as my daughter had just looked at me pleadingly to participate. So the run itself and coming last by a long shot was an experience I was glad to have taken.

Sadly when I saw my daughter and heard her expression "you came last", I was a bit shook up. I had been expecting her to be proud of me having a go. When I saw her dissapointment, I felt awkward. It was interesting to notice my Venn diagram had been overlapping for the actual race but my venn diagram for my daughter's reaction had more variance and with it came difficult feelings.

It took time and talking to get me back on track ('scuse the pun).