Being Bold
coin flips and Olympic equestrians
My horoscope recently told me (Gemini) to be BOLD (apropos of Leo season). I laughed, involuntarily remembering instances from my youth where I was loud and stubborn and made questionable fashion choices. But was that actually being *&^bold#$%^?
From Oxford Dictionary:
bold /bōld/ adjective
1. (of a person, action, or idea) showing an ability to take risks; confident and courageous.
Aha, so there is a subtle planning aspect to being bold. To take risks, we have to know what’s on the line. We have to know what cards we’re playing with and what can be gained… or lost. So no, wearing 4-inch heels to a dancehall when I was a teenager in Kingston was not in itself bold (though sharing this sure feels like it was — cringe).
I’ll give you a better example — one night sitting in the library at the Foxcroft School I was holding a coin in my hands. There were only a few hours left before 11:59pm when I had to submit my decision to the college I would attend for the next four years. This was a massive decision. I was between two schools: St. Lawrence in New York and Sewanee in Tennessee. Both had excellent English departments (I wanted to be a writer lol) and were located in charming woodsy, small-town areas—somewhere I could explore and get lost, and then, eventually, find myself.
I was on the second floor of the library, sitting at a desk facing the window looking out towards Virginia cherry trees cloaked in the night’s darkness. My head was spinning as I weighed the schools against each other. While each had its distinct character, history, and very different seasonal temperatures, they were about the same size, in somewhat similar settings, with comparable educational offerings. The more I thought about it, the more I could see myself being happy at either school. I just could not choose and time was ticking. My anxiety mounted, so I pulled out a coin from my backpack. “Heads Sewanee, Tails St. Lawrence.” I flipped. Within a fraction of a second, the coin landed and in the next few moments I loaded the college’s webpage and pressed “accept.”
I won’t ever know what my life would have been like had I gone to the other school, but that’s okay. I boldly made the decision, and now (9 years later!) proudly cheer “Yea, Sewanee’s Right!”
Is there a decision you need to make? Is it time to be bold?
Lessons from the Equestrians at the Paris Games
I’ve been stuck to the TV following the Olympic Team and Individual Eventing on the majestic grounds of Versailles the past few days. Eventing consists of 3 consecutive days of riding: dressage, cross country, and then show jumping with the same rider and horse duo doing it all. The former horse girl in me couldn’t help but tune in.
It’s interesting to learn about the psychology of riders before competing as their mindset impacts their nerves which the horses can sense.
Team Great Britain won gold. One of their team riders, Laura Collett, also took home the Bronze medal for Individual. She is an incredibly resilient person, coming back from a near-death fall in 2013 which left her blind in one eye. In Paris, Laura set an Olympic eventing record with the best dressage score, and to do so she took a bold approach. In the couple of days leading up to the dressage event, her horse London 52 aka Dan was “absolutely wild in that arena, and he was pretty naughty and feral.” Rather than pushing her horse to perform well in those lead-up days, she saved the pressure for the 10 minutes in the arena and it absolutely paid off. Their performance was spectacular and full of grace, a real treat to watch!
Riding is very much a team sport, whether a rider is competing on an actual team or not. The Canadian Team Manager, Emily Gilbert, managed the logistics of flying the team and their horses into Paris from all over the world. She also helped to manage the team’s nerves going into the Paris Games after missing out on Tokyo in 2020. She shared they’re competing with the goal of each rider achieving a “personal solid” by trusting what they know and executing it. Individual bests, for the benefit of the team.
Whether you’re riding a horse or flipping a coin, I hope you make choices that get you closer to your dreams in the days ahead.
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” - William Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition
With Alofa,
Eva
