Flowers don’t bloom overnight

Played badminton with Jiayi for a good hour-plus two days ago and it was great. Had a good sweat – haven’t had a drenched-in-sweat and stretch-muscles-all-the-way kind of workout in… four months or more? But anyway I really enjoyed playing with her too – thankful for a friend who will be straightforward and honest with me and with her comments, and who is, additionally, good at badminton too so that provided challenge.

The game made me realize my weakness in badminton – that I tend not to run or out-stretch myself. Whenever Jiayi hit a ball to the back corner of the court, instead of running, I would know or think that I wouldn’t be able to receive it in time and so would just give up altogether and walk over to pick the shuttlecock up. I realized this when Jiayi called across the court to me, “Sarah! I haven’t seen you run once when I hit there. Not even once!” It’s happened many times – the subsequent times I reacted this way, Jiayi would respond with an “Oei” or “Sarah…” at my lacklustre performance.

And I realized that maybe that is one of my weaknesses, not just in badminton but in life in general too – that whenever I feel the slightest bit of a stretch, or something I perceive as too impossible to accomplish, I’d back out, sometimes without even trying or putting in the effort.

Perhaps this isn’t directly related, but recently I read something a friend wrote that was a good and timely reminder – flowers don’t bloom overnight. And yeah, they don’t, but I forget that sometimes.

Sometimes I think I yearn to take the easy way out too often or dislike the discomfort that comes with challenges. But I forget that obstacles and challenges will always be present, and life isn’t going to get any easier. And I forget that growth doesn’t come without things we have to endure, learn, be challenged by, and let ourselves get honed by.

As we were playing badminton, I couldn’t help but notice a group of gymnasts who were doing their warm-up rounds around the indoor sports hall – I’ve no idea how many rounds they ran around the sports hall but I saw them run past enough times for it to stay in my memory. And when we left, the gymnasts were on the other side of the hall still training, and I was just reminded of how being good (and staying good) at a sport requires a lot of time, commitment, effort and perseverance. That does apply to many things other than sports too – many things require effort, and I don’t want to forget that.