Being Fearless

I will admit that for a moment, I thought my daughter was being weak, that she was quitting. 

She is a nationally ranked squash player, and has dedicated the past 8 years of her life to this sport. She has been training 5-6 days a week for years to become an elite junior player, sometimes in grueling conditions, making many sacrifices over her young life to get to that position.  

She honed her skill so much that she was almost guaranteed to be recruited for college athletics.  As an incoming sophomore this year, the recruiting season would start in just one more year and her goal was to continue with college squash.

That was the plan.  Until this past summer.  Squash had been her identity and her calling.  Until it wasn’t.

She realized that she didn’t love it anymore and didn’t want to compete in squash anymore.  Instead, she wanted to focus on a sport she was just starting.  Wait.  What?  I couldn’t wrap my head around this.

Here she was, nearly guaranteed to get the very goal she was training so hard for.  And she was in my mind, throwing it away.  She was willing to gamble everything on this decision.

And then it hit me.  She wasn’t quitting.  She was willing to bet on herself.  

“Mom, squash doesn’t define me.  I know that I can be great at anything I want to do.”

My daughter is 15 years old, and she has shown me what incredible bravery looks like.  

She is not weak.  She believes in herself and is fearless in her belief.

And I look at her and ask myself, how can I be fearless too?