Jordan Raney: Sympathetic Joy
Things in the pool always came natural to Jordan Raney. Her athletic ability led her to be a four-time All-American, while she helped Stanford to two National Championships. Now, however, she faces a new challenge: Learning to be happy for her teammates success as she fiercely competes for an active roster spot in the Tokyo 2021 games.
Pushed out of the car, door locked behind me. No way to get home until 4:30 pm. It was 1 o’clock in the afternoon. Sitting down with my water polo backpack slung across my back, I hid myself from passersby while concealing the tears streaming down my cheeks. Thoughts were rushing through my mind - my parents suck, why are they making me do this, I don’t want to be here, I hate water polo, I don’t know anyone here and they are twice my age. The coach knew I was coming to this practice, but I was still sitting on the dirty concrete floor sniffling. Wallowing in my thoughts, I didn’t notice a girl walking towards me. “Are you here for water polo practice?” she asked. I looked up and mumbled a hesitant yes. “Well come on, let’s go! We’re already late!” I don’t know what would have happened if that girl hadn’t walked past me that day. I eventually mustered the courage to participate and I haven’t looked back since.
Most people assume that elite caliber athletes find their sport and are immediately dialed in and know, with 100% certainty, that they are meant to play and excel at the sport. I was not one of those people. I disliked water polo. I was coerced by my parents to play after I had an injury playing soccer. Little did I know that water polo was my golden ticket to take my life into a whole new direction. I became involved in my sport by happenstance and continue to pursue it because of the influential people by my side currently in my journey, the significant people who have affected me in the past, my love and appreciation for the game, and my personal development as a person. The sport has given me so much. While it has taken me around the world, provided me with a top education, and given me lifelong friends, it has taught me profound lessons that I either never would have learned at all or acquired much later in life. Two specific lessons I want to share will continue to impact me for the rest of my life: a feeling of resiliency and a joy in other peoples’ successes.
Now I have the opportunity to share my story with others. My experiences have provided me with resiliency - the ability to recover quickly from setbacks - which is something that was not always in my athletic repertoire. It wasn’t necessary till I reached the senior national team level. In my athletic career, I made every team within the USA pipeline, I was an athlete that top colleges were recruiting, and I eventually was accepted into Stanford, my dream school. It was pretty smooth sailing with hardly any hiccups. Then, the national team hit me like a ton of bricks; I was at the bottom of the totem pole in a foreign environment with intimidating teammates and staff members. I felt alone and that I didn’t belong. This feeling has changed drastically, but it has taken time and effort to forge my place and value on the team. I had to constantly be resilient – whether it was about a mistake in practice, friendship doubts, injury, or not being picked for a roster – to survive. It wasn’t easy, and still isn’t, but it is an invaluable quality that will help me, and anyone, in any future obstacles in sport or life.
Sympathetic joy, “the principle of taking sympathetic or unselfish joy in the good fortune of others,” is a term I learned from Jay Shetty’s book Think Like A Monk. I suspect that many who begin on a serious athletic journey start with the goal of making their respective Olympic team. You compete with others and sometimes you may not want them to succeed. If the coveted spot is between you and someone else, you will do whatever it takes to be triumphant. Although this sounds harsh and selfish, this is a very natural human tendency. But my journey to achieve my Olympic dream has taught me to be happy for my teammates when they have success, even though they are also my competitors. Life is not a zero sum game; just because someone wins doesn’t mean there has to be a loser. To be sure, in sports when there is a winner, there is typically a loser. But life outside of sports is much more than that. Life isn’t as fulfilling if your whole existence is reliant on beating people out. In fact, it would be quite lonely. I have discovered that finding and truly feeling joy for other people’s successes, in addition to my own, will result in infinitely more personal satisfaction. Sympathetic joy doesn’t eliminate the competitive fire I have; it just gives me more moments to be happy.
If I could give advice to my younger self, I would show myself the term Plateau of Latent Potential. This is a situation where one is working incredibly hard but the effort doesn’t come to fruition. Then suddenly, everything clicks. James Clear, the writer who introduced me to the concept, said, “When you finally break through the Plateau of Latent Potential, people will call it an overnight success. The outside world only sees the most dramatic event rather than all that preceded it. But you know that it’s the work you did long ago – when it seemed that you weren’t making any progress – that makes the jump today possible.” I would tell myself to be patient, even when things aren’t going my way. You are just adding fuel to the fire to eventually ignite the flame. Similar to the Greek myth of Sisyphus, the struggle of pushing yourself to the brink without success can be a difficult pill to swallow. But if you fully embrace the mundane and tedious nature of the struggle, you may eventually reach the top. Now as an elite athlete myself, I have a platform to give advice to others. The journey isn’t linear, so patience, resilience, and sympathetic joy are essential to the process.
As for my goals in 2021, I want to do what it takes to make this team kick ass in Tokyo whether I am on the roster or not, be my best self (physically and mentally), attend my Stanford graduate program, get better at piano, travel, and try everything and fail often. Persist and appreciate.
