Do you enjoy science? I enjoy it now more than I used to. I never much cared for math, either, unless it involved money. Then I found it interesting. I can remember sitting at my grandparent’s kitchen table counting small piles of coins and putting them in paper rolls to bring to the bank. I always liked guessing how much the change would total, and I loved stacking the finished rolls of coins when we were done. Now my kids use a change sorting machine to do the same thing and they seem to enjoy the process as well. It is hands on, and practical, and fun. For some reason, it took me a long time to realize that the concepts we were learning in science were happening all around me and existed in real life. It wasn’t until 7th or 8th grade, in a course that used to be called “Earth Science” that I made the realization that I enjoyed science if it had to do with natural processes – and everything in that course did! I remember performing various experiments indoors and outdoors at school that year which involved solar power, rock layers in the earth, and laws of motion. It was cool, and fun, and made sense to me – for the first time I started to appreciate the role of science in our world.
As I’ve gotten older, some of these “natural laws” have played a bigger part in my life – or maybe I’m just becoming more aware of them. Lately I was reminded of Isaac Newton and his laws of motion. It was during my youngest daughter’s baseball game. Her team is good – very good, in fact, and they have only lost one game all season. The best part about it is that they are having fun along the way – the coach is great, and certainly does not play favorites or exclude anyone. The team just happens to work very well together and they are all becoming good players. So recently, when they were playing another good team, and they were behind a few runs, I was thinking about Newton’s laws of motion and how they seem to play a big part in human behavior as well. My daughter’s team had made a few mistakes “missed catching a pop fly, dropped the ball when thrown to first base, had a child run off the field into the arms of a mother because of an insect bite, etc…” and the other team was scoring runs – gaining momentum. Each inning is confined to a five run maximum, and the opposing team maxed out and took the field. Now, normally our team hits the ball well. There are one or two “big hitters,” but every player has held their own on getting the ball in to play. Our first batter got a nice hit – a long, even, pop fly which went directly into the glove of the shortstop from the other team! Then two members of our team immediately struck out! This was shocking because the coach is the pitcher for the team, and our kids rarely strike out. The next few innings were pretty much the same, with the opposing team dominating, and our kids making unusual and careless mistakes until our first baseman caught a pop fly and tagged out the runner who had already headed for second – our first double play of the season! After that, our team was unstoppable. They maxed out on runs for the remaining innings and went on the win the game.
And it was this game – the behavior of these young kids – that got me thinking about what many coaches and professional athletes and scientists already know, and believe, and live by: Newton’s law! Objects that are in motion will stay in motion and objects that are at rest will stay at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force! This concept seems so simple – so natural and obvious in moving objects, but I never really thought about it in relation to our human behavior. It also reminded me of another time when sports played a big part in my life. It reminded me of “Coach Gentlemen” and his sled.
I joined the high school football team knowing nothing about the game of football and having no real love or even a mild interest in the game. My father never watched an entire game of any professional sport on television in his whole life, and none of the male role models I had were particularly interested in football. I joined the team because most, if not all of the boys in my school that I either thought were very cool or that I was horribly afraid of were on the football team. I thought that joining the team would improve my social status, lessen the likelihood of getting my butt kicked, and impress all the girls because I could wear a jersey with my name on the back – who wouldn’t want that! In truth, this plan worked rather well. Over time, I did become friends with my teammates, and because I was a lineman, I didn’t really need to know anything about the game except when to keep the guy in front of me from getting past me so he couldn’t get the ball from us, and when I needed to push past the guy in front of me so I could try to get the ball from them. I’m sure there is much more to the game, but this got me through.
I was somewhat small for a lineman, but our school was small, and the team was small, so there really wasn’t much choice for them. If you tried out for football – you could play football. On the first day of practice we met our new assistant coach – “Coach Gentlemen”. Fresh out of the Marine Corps, and having played on the high school football team when he was in school, Coach Gentlemen could not wait to impart some of his old football and Marine Corps techniques on us. We called him Coach Gentleman, because he always referred to us as his “gentlemen,” and we liked that. We liked him. Well, respected him might be more accurate. One of the first drills he had us do was to line up in front of the two man sled and attempt to hit the sled, with him standing on it, and push him around the field. He was not a small man, and it was not a small sled. My friend and I, who had both joined the team for the same reasons, made a pathetic attempt at moving the sled on that first day. Over and over and over again we would get down into a three point stance – wait for the whistle – and hit the sled, legs chugging hard, shoulders buried deep into the cushions, heads down, looking at the ground, hoping and praying to see the sled start to move along the ground, just a little bit, just start to move keep the legs chugging, digging deep, straining, trying, looking at that spot where the sled met the ground – waiting for the movement – hearing Coach’s screams “Hit this sled! Move those legs, come on! You can do it! I’m not moving yet! Don’t give up, don’t you give up on me, gentlemen!” The sled never moved. Our legs slipped and slid on the dirt, churning around like some ridiculous comic characters, but the sled never moved. When coach finally blew his whistle and sent us on the next exercise, he never said a thing – his look said it all. That sled needed to move next time.
I remember dreaming about moving the sled. Pushing that horrible contraption all around the school grounds with Coach Gentlemen screaming in glee and pride. I remember the tightness in my stomach as practice time came closer. Knowing the sled was waiting. Days passed without moving the wretched thing an inch. Each time we tried, we suffered coach’s deadly silence after our futile efforts. The sled had to move. I remember walking out of my house each morning and assessing the weather conditions solely on how well the sled might move today. Rain and mud was not good. A crisp morning with light frost seemed ideal, just enough moisture to lubricate the ground beneath the sled. Sometimes we had gym class during the school day before football began, and my friend and I would move the sled “it was easier without the coach on it,” to a place that seemed to give us an advantage – a slight incline or a place with thick grass or lots of fallen leaves. Regardless of our efforts, the sled was always moved by the time practice began, and it was never in a good place. One day, the coach discovered that we could have a better workout if we tried to push the sled up a large hill near the football field. “Don’t worry, gentleman,” he said “once you get it up on top, I’ll let you push it back down, and that part will be easy!” Days soon turned into a week, and the sled had not moved, at least not by my friend and I. But I believed we could do it. I believed with all my heart that we could and would move that sled.
And we did. We finally did move the sled. And when we did, Coach Gentlemen’s screams of exaltation seemed to rise several octaves: “That’s it, gentleman, you’re moving my sled! You are moving this sled! I knew you could! Keep going, now, don’t stop, boys, head for the hill!” And in a few more weeks, we did push him up that hill, and back down, and all around the school grounds while he screamed with glee and pride. I have accomplished many goals in my life since high school. I have faced a myriad of challenges, tests, tough trials, and nose to the grindstone tasks since those days long ago on the football field. But somehow, for some reason, the image of that sled starting to move for the first time as my legs dug furiously into the ground, as my shoulder felt as though it was going to pop out of the socket, as I heard the coach’s screams of encouragement and wild excitement stand out in my mind as one of my major accomplishments. I wonder if Newton felt the same way when he wrote down his concepts. Simple laws of motion. Simple truths about human behavior.
There are other ways I have seen this law work outside of the sports comparisons. If I am doing work around the house, mowing the lawn, cleaning the garage, watering the plants, etc…, and I stop for a snack, or to sit in a lawn chair for a break with my wife for a few minutes, I really do not want to go back and get “in motion”. The same thing seems to happen when I hit the couch and turn on the t.v. Motion has stopped. So has all motivation to go back in motion. I also noticed with my consulting business that momentum seems to play a part. Multiple bookings for presentations seem to feed off each other, and then there are times of “dry spells”. What I used to refer to as “feast or famine” in business terms, may simply be reflections of this scientific law. Writing is also an example. Starting is always tougher for me. Once the flow has begun, I am able to move, and adjust, and add much easier to what has been written than that first horrible feeling of staring at the large blank white page. Motion attracts motion. In nature, in science, and in behavior – go figure…
And staying in motion is hard sometimes. I have spoken before about my difficulties with that elusive state of being known as “balance”. I lean more towards “all or nothing”. For example, if I am working at a project around the house, and I find that the job really requires a tool that I will need to purchase or borrow to do the job correctly, I am more likely to continue in motion, use the wrong tool or tools, and do the job incorrectly or completely ruin the whole thing because I refused to stop my forward motion long enough to get the right equipment. And that is just not too bright. It took me a very long time to learn that working hard often means working smart, and that the right tool can make all the difference on many projects. Getting these tools is, in fact, staying in motion, it is just slower and often more costly than I want it to be. Those are the times I am most prone to give up, and give in, and stop moving forward.
Which brings up another problem with staying in motion: it is just plain hard sometimes. Goals take time. Things get in the way. They usually take more work than you ever thought or planned or dreamed that they would. I was recently watching a documentary about Martin Luther King. He was being interviewed a few days before his assassination, and the interviewer asked what kept him going, what motivated him, why he continued to believe that the Civil Rights Movement would eventually bring about equality. He answered quite quickly, and his answer surprised me. I was expecting a long, drawn out, motivational monologue about how goodness and righteousness would always win out over injustice and prejudice “or words to that effect.” His answer was much shorter. He looked directly into the interviewers face, and with an expression that seemed uncharacteristically tired, or worn down – resigned perhaps would be a better description, he said: “We’ve just gone too far to go back now.” King knew the power of momentum. He knew that what had been set in motion needed to continue in order to succeed. I think of that one simple phrase sometimes when I feel tired, or beaten, or when I begin to question the path of my life and the tremendous time and effort it is taking to reach certain goals, or to adjust to constant changes, or to simply accept and play out the cosmic cards that are dealt to me and those I love: “We’ve just gone too far to go back now.” That just might be the answer many people need to hear before they give up, or change directions, or buy into the popular and growing messages that a new spouse, or a new house, or a new car, or a new you with a new life is really the answer to anything. Life is hard. But life is good. You’ll get there if you keep moving forward. Isaac Newton proved it with his theory. Martin Luther King proved it with his courage. Coach Gentlemen proved it with his sled. If you’ve stalled out or stopped, don’t wait anymore – you’ve worked hard to come this far, and you know the sled you need to move – get out there and start pushing!
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