Gene William Mauch, an American professional baseball player and manager, once said, “You can't lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself.” This small, yet extremely open (to contemplation) quote can be explored in many different ways, and can be used in even more diverse ways. To me, the quote does not speak of “experience” as it might to some people. It speaks to me of one’s achievements, of one’s accomplishments, of how far one has gone in life, not how much they have learned along the way. Keeping this in mind I proceed to say that I strongly agree with Mauch when he says that no one can force someone, or expect someone to do something that they themselves have not accomplished. It is simply not justified.
During the time when my life was in fast forward from tenth grade to now, I found that I had finally come face to face with what I knew from the experiences of others called “family pressure.” It was a strange creature to me because I had always thought of my family to be a bit more “liberal” and understanding than most others I had met. But I realized, as I came to the age of “going to college,” that it was there, and that it was not going to be easy to rid of.
Initially it was very subtle in its approach. It came through the mouth of one of my uncles (a person who had a significant amount of power in my family) when he said that I was taking too many “useless” classes in ninth grade such as music theory and guitar lessons, and that I should be taking more AP classes because those are the things that would actually get me somewhere in life. Back then I had incredible respect for my father, some of which was blind admiration which would make me do anything he said without a minute’s hesitation, because of this, I simply said yes and carried on with my life.
As I grew older, I started to have my own views about a lot of things. I started having my own opinion on things, and sometime I was so strong-headed in my approach that, without intending to, I started to become exceedingly aggressive, which in result made me intimidating to some, which, for some incomprehensible reason, made people respect me and my opinion more and more. This newfound respect that I got from my peers incredibly boosted my self-esteem and gave me confidence to stand up for things that I believed in, to argue for things which I believed were wrong or nonsensical to me. Eventually, I was able to get a hold on my “anger” as people thought and became bolder, but not too much so that it came across as arrogance, nor too less for it to come across as fickle-mindedness, but balanced, with the help of great argumentative skills, so that it became a weapon for me to use at will.
The next time I faced my nemesis, family pressure, I was prepared, and ready to fight it at an equal level. Or so I thought. The next time family pressure showed up in my life, it was unlike the previous time, it too had become bolder. And again it came through the mouth of my uncle. When he found out that I was planning on pursuing music performance as a major in college, he said to me, “Are you crazy? Do you want to waste all of your father’s money on something like that? You should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking such a thing. What you should focus on is becoming a doctor and not such time wasting activities,” to which my reply was nothing. I was choking on my own words, stuck between my pride as an individual and my humility as a younger member of the family. I could say nothing.
Then my father calmly straightened his back, sat on the edge of his seat, looked directly at my uncle, and said, “And what right do you have to tell him such a thing? What have you done with your life? Look at you; you’re nothing but a drunkard, still wasting your father’s money.” I was paralyzed with shock and so were the rest of the 11 people in the room, and yet my father continued. “How do you even have the nerve to tell my son to do something you weren’t able to do even a fraction of what he is doing now? How can you even think of telling my son to become a doctor when you couldn’t even get into pre-med school? You do not have the right to tell anyone in this house what they can or cannot do if you yourself haven’t done it.”
With that ended the dinner that my family was hosting. Our family has not spoken to my uncle’s family since. And it is this experience in my life which causes me to strongly agree with Mauch when he says that “You can't lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself.” Because you do not have the right, or basis to have an argument, to penalize the other person for not doing something that you yourself have not either. If you do not expect it from yourself then you have no right to expect it from another.
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