by Christopher Cudworth

As the skinniest kid in a family of four boys, two older and one younger than me, it was an art of survival to learn to handle teasing from my brothers over skinny arms and skinny legs.

They called me “card-table knees” because when sitting in a crouching position with knees pulled up you could place a deck of cards on top of my knee joints and they would not fall off.

My eldest brother owned a 45rpm record of “My Skinny Minnie” that he would play at loud volume through his guitar amp while I banged on his bedroom door screaming at him to stop. His laughter drove me even more insane, kicking the door and trying to break the handle off.

Between the artful antagonization of my brothers and some heavily critical upbringing by a father who was not above using physical means to make his point whenever our behavior bothered him, part of me was forged into a competitive little facet of personality my brothers all called The Mink.

Minks are members of the Mustelidae, or weasel family. Weasels (and minks) are known to be feisty little creatures that spit and fight like crazy when mad or cornered. Hence the nickname.

And it fit. There was seldom a time when it did not feel like as if I were fighting the whole world.  That attitude produced a series of playground fights with friends and foes alike. All it took was a wrong word or phrase or a challenge issued––even casually––and it was fists up.

The Mink served me well in early youth sports, although my best friend once pulled me aside and said, “Don’t you know you’ve got to play nice with girls, or they won’t like you!”

“I don’t care if they like me,” I hissed under my breath. “I want to win!”

Only I did really, truly, honestly care that girls liked me. Too much, in fact. Yet it was difficult to read their emotions on so many levels. And being so eager to impress them while not showing any aspect of personality that might be viewed as unattractive weakness proved a confounding challenge indeed.

Like the time I pitched an American Legion baseball game against a nearby town. I knew that a girl I really liked would be there with her friends, who I also would not mind impressing. After throwing a 1-hitter, I strolled over to talk with them and got the group cold shoulder. Turns out they’d all come to flirt with players from the other team, all of whom I’d struck out at least once during the game. The Mink lost that round.

Competitive fury worked wonders in the sport of cross country, however. Focusing your inner rage on covering 2 or 3 miles is a good way to push back the inevitable pain brought on by distance running. As a freshman I made the Varsity squad in high school. As a sophomore I earned the most points on the season and led the team to a first-ever conference championship. As a junior transfer to another school, I joined and led a team to its first ever District Championship and as a senior placed 4th in that District and advanced to Sectionals, where The Mink withered at the daunting prospect of running against the best teams in the best sectional in the state. Even The Mink found its limits eventually.

So inner rage can take you just so far. And you have to be careful how and where you let The Mink loose. The workplace, for example, is not the best place to take a combative approach to relationships.

There were lessons to be learned, therefore, on how to control the mink out in the real world.

A co-worker once determined that it would be beneficial for his career to have me process all my work through him. His manipulative approach included threats and promises to undermine my future with the company. The pressure was relentless, lasting for weeks until one night I went home angry, with The Mink fantasizing how to punch him in the face when I returned to the office the next day.

However not wanting to make a negative impression on my own children, I took a walk upon getting home, and exhausted from the emotional torment going through my head, I threw myself down on a high jump pit at the high school track, rolled over on my back and tore off my glasses. At that moment the sky looked close enough to touch, and into my head, seemingly out of nowhere, popped the word “forgiveness.”

Forgiveness is exactly the opposite of The Mink. It is also exactly the opposite of the whole notion of competitive spirit. You really cannot be competitive toward someone and forgive them. It just doesn’t work.

But an interesting thing happened when I adopted an attitude of forgiveness toward that co-worker. His manipulations had no power over me anymore. Two weeks later he was fired. Yet I felt no vindication in that result. Just amazement at the counterintuitive, and inherently more moral approach to resolving a problem.

The reason that lesson of forgiveness was so important in my life is that it is just as powerful to forgive yourself as it is to forgive others. When your running or riding performance does not meet your own expectations, it does no good to beat yourself up for days, weeks, months or years. Yes, it’s important to re-calibrate your effort and learn from your mistakes. But forgive yourself and move on.

The Mink learned to step aside in many such situations over the years. And with that more mature perspective on competition and life, all things became more enjoyable. The Mink was part of the game, but not the whole game. The Mink helped motivate performance, but was not the sole reason for competing. Anger was replaced by appreciation of opportunity. The starting line became less a position of dread and more a position of gratitude. For health. For the joy of competing. For excitement and diversion and above all things, the will to play.

The Mink still lives inside me. But only I choose to decide when to let it out. Life is much happier that way. Whatever animal might vex you at times; the Badger, the Snake, the Warthog or the Tiger, you might want to get it under control. You’ll feel a lot more human for the effort.