Moral Support

While I'm still in the same mood I was after the horse show, I decided to elaborate on some of my comments from my last post - particularly the comments about people not believing in me.

I will be the first person to admit that I am not an amazing rider.  I am barely a mediocre rider.  There are a lot of people who are the kind of confident people who always think they are great at something even when they are starting out, but that has never been my style - not even when I'm actually good at something.  I have no problem being honest  - or modest.  That being said, it is nice to have someone believe in you.

Now don't get me wrong, my parents are very supportive of me, and a lot of my friends are too.  Even the kids at the barn are supportive, constantly encouraging me to do things that are WAY ABOVE my skill level.  Their faith in me is perhaps the most calming and encouraging, and when they compliment my rides with Walker, it really makes me feel good about myself because these are kids that have been riding their entire life and know what they're talking about.

But there are always certain people that you can never read or else people that you simply get the impression that they don't believe in you in that way.  I don't want to name names or point specific people out, but there are always those people whose approval you strive to attain and waste your time doing so.

I was always a fairly good student in school, and my high school in particular really loved to cater to their better students, visibly ignoring the rest of them.  I was never athletic, and now that I'm back into riding, I understand how all those other students must have felt while they were struggling to pass and we were having private meetings with the principal to decide our futures.

Athletics are a lot like this too.  Coaches get excited about their better players and sometimes neglect all the rest.  Since I'm simply a beginner rider, I feel like sometimes I am neglected in this way and simply patronized and praised for whatever I am able to do - with little expectation to do better.  It's hard to progress that way when people don't believe in you, when they are stuck in a rut thinking that you are a mediocre rider and they could be paying attention to someone else instead.  I use the example of coaches, but I'm not necessarily saying that my instructors don't believe in me.  I'm simply referring to the nameless individuals who don't, who patronize me when I try, and whose approval I never seem to get.

There's something unspoken about these people, a feeling that you get that cuts deep into your heart.  They may compliment you the way a more faithful friend compliments you but you don't believe it in the same way.  Or else they patronize you, as I've said, telling you you did well - but with the underlying tones that they never expected you to do even that well.  Or else they say nothing, and you couldn't get a compliment or a criticism out of them if you tried.  Their responses to your comments and queries is simply uninterested surprise at your dilemmas.  We spend a lot of time focusing on these people, and their responses or lack of responses seem to stick with us all the more than those that are sincere and well-meaning.

I bring this up in regard to horse shows because it is part of the reason I have decided I do not like horse shows.  I bought a horse to enjoy my riding, not to be shoved under a microscope, fighting for kind words from people who don't matter.  Because they don't matter.  Not at all.  And I'm much too old (or at least I feel too old) to be playing that game.  But all the same, sometimes the things that hurt us the most aren't the misbehaving horses or the rides we could have done better, but the moral support that wasn't there when we needed it.