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| Georgie Sook Class of 2019 |
There’s some innate part of me that has always felt most at home when surrounded by water. I’ve been told that at two years old, I fearlessly flung my small body into the pool, only to come up gasping “I fwimmin!” Throughout my life, I never found myself far from the water. I swam competitively when I was young and although I took a break through middle school, I picked the sport back up in high school. Because I came to view swimming primarily through the lenses of competition, though, I lost sight of my love for it. It began to feel a lot more like a draining chore than a God-given privilege. I didn’t find happiness in just being in the water anymore; I began to find it in my success as an athlete. My ego was greatly affected by how well I performed, and fear of not getting better was what drove me, begrudgingly, to 5:30am practices. I deeply regret the fact that I was often outwardly negative about practice, which I know must have been a discouraging to both my coaches and my teammates. After attending the high school state meet senior year as an alternate, swimming dropped off of my radar completely. I worked through the summer and started college, and getting back in the pool was the last thing on my mind.
Last night, however, for the first time since the high school state swim meet in March, I got back into the water. This really only occurred because I resolved that I was going to contribute (or at least, attempt to contribute) to my sorority’s intramural score by participating in an athletic competition. Because of my history with the sport and the fact that I’m not particularly coordinated (I like to blame my less-than-stellar vision, but truth be told, I also lack a general sense of rhythm and cohesiveness in body movement), the swim meet appeared to be the best option. In order to evade complete humiliation and reassure myself that I am still in fact capable of not drowning, I went to the natatorium the night before the meet. When I first walked in, the oh-so-familiar sense of pride welled up in me and I was embarrassed that I was in a place where teams of younger kids would be swimming much more quickly and gracefully than me. I was also plenty conscious that my swimsuit didn’t fit my “college is hard so treat yourself” and “you can work out next semester” body as well as it had fit my high school “I don’t eat that well but at least I’m a varsity athlete” body. However, I felt as though I had reached a point of no return, so I threw inhibitions aside and jumped in.
And let me tell you, I fwam.
For the next hour and a half, I moved somewhat awkwardly, yet with a sense of familiarity, up and down the lanes of that pool. Occasionally, yes, I stood at the end of the pool, huffing and puffing and blowwwwing down the remains of my ego, but I was happier than I had found myself in college up until then. I remembered and rediscovered something that I loved and knew and had some form of control over. The noises surrounding me and those in my head quieted and there was a warmth in my heart that can only come from a blessed re-unitedness, like wrapping your arms around an old friend long-absent from your life or hearing your dad finally getting home from work. The embers of pride were drowned and in their place I found love and joy and peace. I found the ability to appreciate doing something without having to worry about whether or not I was good at it. I found gratitude for not just the ability to swim, but for the gift of life.
Since last night, it occurred to me that I allow my pride to suck the joy out of many things in my life, for example, learning. Throughout the last several years of my education, I have often found myself so caught up in getting a good grade that my enjoyment of school has been contingent upon it. What’s worse is that it isn’t really my grade that determines my sense of happiness, but rather, my grade in comparison to the grades of everyone else. I don’t mind failing a test as long as all of my peers fail too. Getting a B is okay unless all of my friends got an A. This mindset of pride is revolting, and all it leads to is self-pity-induced soul-sick sighs disappointment in oneself as well as failure to celebrate the success of others. It has become more and more apparent to me that there is no lasting joy and there is no true satisfaction to be found in one’s own achievements. However, with pride taken out of the equation, we are able to truly appreciate the good things in our lives.
In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis says it far more eloquently than I am able:
“Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with ever fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
“It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.”
As the year comes to a close, I am thankful for God’s faithfulness to me despite my frequent failure to be faithful to Him. I am thankful that my salvation is not dependent upon myself and my actions. I am thankful that His mercies are new every morning. I am thankful for the McConnell Center and its promotion of learning for the love of learning. I am thankful that people were created in the image of God and that they are a constant reminder of His goodness to me. I am thankful that even the clouds of chaos and confusion bear a little light, and even the cold December breeze whispers the hope of a new start.
College is not easy. It has not been the best few months of my life. I have not been wildly successful in my endeavors here thus far. But God is growing me, sustaining me, and providing me with people who are good to me and for me. I am filled with a deep contentment that is thicker and weightier than “happy” ever shows itself to be. Like David, I am seeing that “the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed I have a beautiful inheritance.” (Psalm 16)
Georgie Sook is a freshman McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. She studies political science.