“You’re really good for your first try,” the girl in my neighborhood offering art lessons commented after I showed her the rose I drew. “You’re really good for your first try,” the lady selling my mother a $20 flute off Facebook Marketplace complimented after I immediately made a sound through the headjoint. “You’re really good for your first try,” said my brother as he helped adjust my grip on a worn racket that we were using to play badminton. During the summer before my freshman year, he taught me the basics until I picked it up — and fairly quickly, I did.
To be clear, picking things up quickly does not mean jumping into a subject and instantly becoming a prodigy. It’s when you test out something new and you’re not considered skilled at it, but you’re good enough for people around you to point it out. It’s like being able to hit a ball with control compared to barely hitting it at all.
When I was young, I found joy in switching between my interests. I told my first coach that I had only been playing badminton for a short time. Just like my brother, he would say that with my “talent,” I could become someone outstanding if I practiced hard enough. My chest would warm with determination at the compliment, willing my body to move just a little faster on the court.
I diverted that feeling to other subjects as well. Having a headstart meant that I would become excellent at everything I loved, like everyone expected. With that in mind, I enjoyed badminton practice-matches with my friends and drawing pictures from Pinterest. The pride I saw in others’ eyes and my own happiness felt like the only things that existed in the world.
That serenity didn’t last when I entered high school. The time I initially had tight control over began to slip through my fingers. Suddenly, if the reward from commitments wasn’t seen through trophies or certificates, it didn’t exist.
My school binder felt cursed. Opening it would trap me inside a mountain of work as precious hours passed in a blink of an eye. Hours added up into many days, weeks and months. The poses that I could draw weren’t impressive anymore. After a particularly rough badminton game, my brother’s voice cracked with frustration, criticizing my footwork. The longer I looked into his eyes while he spoke to me, the more I felt his words echoing in my head: why does it take you so long to improve? Improvement came with hard work and time, but I only had enough time to become decent — like a runner who sprinted too fast in the beginning and lost their momentum.
“You’ve gotten a lot better,” my best friend said to me as my hands stopped conducting to the beat of the music. Her voice was filled with satisfaction I assumed was meaningless, and she continued: “Makes sense — you were really good on your first try.”
When I started learning to conduct for the Lynbrook band, I anticipated the disappointment that would come from her like it came from everyone else, but it never arrived. She was just proud of the pure effort I put into seemingly trivial improvements. At that moment, the warmth that spread through my chest wasn’t from receiving compliments anymore, it was everything I’ve gained from my experiences that was forgotten.
I savored the rush of excitement from playing an intense badminton game with my doubles partner who gave me high fives and laughed at my unfunny jokes. Finishing all my homework, I stayed up late drawing again to see my design on the back of a marching band leadership hoodie; members came up to me smiling enthusiastically and pointing at their little character on the back.
Being “alright” at many things has given me precious moments of laughter, distracted side conversations, and so much happiness in others’ gazes that it was overwhelming. Those moments give me a sense of fulfillment that I can’t put into words. I don’t need to be the person who devotes their life to trying to catch up to others, but the person who improves because of passion and not insecurity. The limited time I have is precious, and even when I use just a little bit of it for something I love, time slows down, letting me savor every last second.
