“Whoo…whoo…whoo.” I looked up just as I finished watering
our lawn and noticed that the confident exhaling was coming from Mark, my
younger brother. He was on the pull-up bar in the garage cranking repetitions
like it was his job. Impressed, I thought to myself, Wow. I’d never seen someone do pull ups with such ease, and coming
from Mark, this was especially humbling. I thought back to when we were little
kids, when climbing the staircase was a challenge for him.
When it
came to sports or anything physical, Mark
could have been in the thesaurus for frail or spindly. He was rarely a force or even simply mediocre in any of the camps or
teams he participated in. Even with all the musical
instruments he tried, Mark didn’t follow through with any of them. Consequently,
I often felt he lacked the determination and toughness to excel in any endeavor
that required more than a naturally gifted brain.
Mark’s remarkable transformation,
however, began in 2009, just after he turned fourteen. Our uncle, a fitness buff, introduced him to
a workout regimen on a special exercise machine requiring ten repetitions of
pull-ups, dips, and leg lifts. At the time, Mark struggled to do even two
pull-ups, but he took on our uncle’s challenge. During his workout, Mark
chalked a tally mark on the garage wall next to him to keep track of his sets. He set a monthly goal to
increase his set number by four and proceeded to do just that without missing a
day. Eventually Mark peaked at 32 sets of each exercise, an unbelievable feat
for anyone.
Although I was superior
to Mark in all things athletic, I possessed a weakness that was as much a
defining aspect of me as physical inferiority was for Mark. Public speaking has
always been a challenge and a great source of anxiety for me. Ever since I can
remember, I hated getting up to give speeches or act in a play. In group
projects, I scrambled to be the one who did the most research or organized the
team overall so I wouldn’t have to speak as much. I scheduled my English class
so that it would be my first class of the day. That way I’d get my speeches
over with as soon as possible. As much as I tried to avoid it, though, public
speaking remained a part of my education that would not go away.
Last year, my English class concluded its
unit on transcendentalism with a major writing project to be presented to the
class in the form of a speech. Although
I was fascinated by Emerson and Thoreau and aced the written portion of the project,
the speech requirement was another Marker. Halfway through my speech, I blanked
out and just stood there frozen in front of the class. I tried desperately to recall what I’d
planned to say but nothing came. I finally took the unimaginable, humiliating
step of asking the teacher if I could finish the speech the next day. All
this happened despite my intensive preparation, practicing in front of the
mirror and before my family in the days leading up to the speech. At that
moment, an escape to a life on Walden Pond by myself, in solitude, would have
been the best gift imaginable. I managed to wrap up my speech, but I was very
disappointed by my performance.
That night after soccer practice, I remember getting out of
the car in the garage to put my equipment away. I walked to the container near Mark’s
dip machine, dropped my soccer ball off, and then suddenly fixed my gaze on the
wall in front of me. Although I’d seen these tally marks for almost a year now,
I stared in amazement at the sheer number of marks on the wall and it hit me. All
of sudden, I understood. I saw how remarkably Mark had transformed and the
reason for it was staring me in the face. Each tally mark corresponded to a set
of exercises completed, which corresponded to being one tally mark stronger and
more powerful than before.
The before and after change in Mark was
astonishing, but I knew the transformation did not occur immediately. Only
after nearly a year did the workouts begin to pay off for him and become
obvious to me. I realized, then, that I needed to learn from Mark, that I
needed tally marks on the wall for my own “frail” area. Every speech or
presentation would be like one of Mark’s workouts. I would struggle at first,
but with each speech or presentation, I would be one tally mark closer to becoming
less fearful, less nervous. Seeing my brother change
over time inspired me to seek a similar remarkable change in me. Through
the remainder of that semester, I gave many speeches; some okay, but many still
quite disappointing.
This
year in my AP Biology class, I have already given five presentations and have
prepared for them with greater purposefulness.
Small changes like speaking more deliberately or taking deeper breaths has allowed me to taste some success for the first time.
Most recently, I gave a presentation about a Kansas State University
Professor, Mark Haub, and his famous “Twinkie diet.” The moment I finished, I
knew something was radically different. I had spoken clearly and confidently,
with a level of authority I’d never shown in previous speeches. In fact, I
received extra credit for the way I handled my classmates’ questions and my
teacher was intrigued enough by my presentation to ask a few questions of his
own. I was thrilled because I no longer felt paralyzed.
I thought of the tally marks that now covered my “wall” of progress and
knew that I had Mark to thank for each one of them.
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