The Courage to Change by Kayode D. '27

Last summer, I got into running. And it was really fun! I enjoyed it a lot! So much so that when my friend offered me her ticket for the Cambridge Half marathon last fall, I accepted. But first, I went on a run through Boston and tried to run to the airport [ THIS WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA DON’T TRY THIS IT”S IMPOSSIBLE ⁠01 although nothing is possible with the heart of the cards 😏 jk please don’t do this it’s not worth it ]. I never ended up running the race after that. I did ended up writing a blog about it all, though.

This summer, I wanted to get back into running. I’ve been on break for too long, and it’s time to get back at it. So among a bunch of other goals, I told myself⁠02 and my friends and family that I was going to run a half marathon by the end of the summer. 

But that didn’t end up happening. My friend, Paul I. ‘24 recently told me that I don’t keep my word. And that’s no shade to him at all! He told me that I say I’m going to do a lot of things, but don’t follow through. I reflected on myself and realized that he’s right. I have no trouble coming up with cool ideas but my execution is not there. I have SO MANY ideas for projects and blogs and things I want to do with my life, but I am not seeing any sustainable progress towards those goals. And most of that comes from never starting. And that sucks.

…

Growing up, my family played a lot of board games. During covid we would play a full game of monopoly every night for weeks. You heard me right, a full game. Of MONOPOLY. Every night. And sometimes when I was losing I would get upset. But my dad would just repeat the same thing over and over: “Change your strategy.” If my brilliant plan wasn’t working, then why not switch directions? The only thing worse than beating a dead horse is betting on one, so why keep putting your hope in something that isn’t working? Sure, it could magically start working next turn and you could win it all. But it hasn’t magically worked so far, and it hasn’t magically worked any of the other nights, either. So what’s so different about tonight?

I realized that I needed to change my strategy. I’m trying to magically will myself to change, like somehow I’ll wake up tomorrow and just have the motivation and mojo to do everything I’ve ever dreamed of. But that’s a bad strategy– I would know, it hasn’t worked for me yet. 

So now I know I need to make a change. But how? How do I get out of this rut of overthinking and spinning a wheel in place and actually start moving towards my goal?

Go to someone stronger than me. 

Part 2: The Piano Analogy

I struggle with asking for help. It’s something I’ve been working on, but it’s still hard. I feel like I should be strong enough to get things done on my own, and I shouldn’t need help. In reality, I do just OK and refuse help belligerently.

One time I was asked what wish I would make if I had a genie. What immediately came to mind was something I’ve been wishing for a long time: That I would wake up tomorrow and magically know how to play the piano beautifully. Any song I could think of, just like that. I feel⁠03 or maybe I felt, back when I actually practiced like I can speak through drumming, like there is no buffer between idea and actualization, and I want to be able to do that on piano.⁠04 Tangent: Freshman winter, I made a new year’s resolution to learn every song in the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack. I had strong energy in the first few weeks, learning a whole two and a half songs (Christmas is Coming, My Little Drum, and both hands to Linus and Lucy, but I could never put them together)! But now, almost two years later, I haven’t learned any more of the soundtrack. I wish I had, but I haven’t. I wish I could play them.

But as I told my friend this wish I had, I realized what I was missing out on. I was skipping all of the hard work. Yes, it sucks. And it’s hard. And it’s not always fun. But nothing worth doing is easy. If I woke up tomorrow and just knew how to play piano magically, I would only be cheating myself on what makes piano worth playing! It being hard is what makes it fun to do. So I don’t want to just know it all instantly, I want to work for it.⁠05 or rather, I want to WANT to work for it

But recently I saw a second side to this analogy. If I have turned down this offer for instant magical piano skills, I am now sitting at a piano, trudging through learning to play. A friend or mentor comes up to me at my little piano and says “Kayode! I see you’re learning piano. You’re struggling a little bit. Here, let me teach you what I know.” I reply, “No! If I take handouts from people like you, I’m cheating myself out of the experience of learning! I need to grow on my own!” 

And doesn’t that sound so stupid? The book of Proverbs, chapter 12 was literally written for people like me: “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid… the way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.” 

And I hear this and I say “That’s harsh, isn’t it?” But that’s the truth! Time and again, I try to do things–not just playing music, but even living life– without any help from those around me. I try to do it all by myself, as if that proves I am capable of doing it all on my own, when I don’t think that’s the lesson I need to be learning. It hasn’t worked for me yet. 

Part 3: Enter B-Dawg

My friend, Brendan, is a BEAST. We grew up together, and I knew he was the perfect person to ask for help. I told him about my running aspirations and my fears with so little of the summer left. He got really excited and we signed up for a more manageable race: a 10k. 

At first I thought this was lame. Why not go for the gold and do the half marathon? Maybe because I have never run in a real race ever and needed a benchmark to actually see my efforts actualize? I started running every night, and eventually was able to run 4 miles in a go. I got this in the bag.

My big running song this summer has been “Baseball Card” by Worthikids. I’m on the rise. 

As we prepared to run over the next few weeks, Brendan told me he was going to stick with my pace, and that we weren’t going to stop. We were going to finish this thing. 

And we did! 

Haha, he never let me stop the entire time. We ran or jogged or walked for a bit, but we did the whole thing without stopping. We ended with a time of 1:12:00, which is pretty good, I’d say! Better than never running at all, at least. 

I walked and he encouraged me, and we ended up running a full 10k! I ate like 5 bananas when it was over. Brendan told me that I would want to run another one in two weeks, and I did NOT believe him. But now it’s been two weeks…and lowkey kinda yeah. I could do that again. Whatever, man, I’m learning that when I’m wrong about something it’s not the end of the world. 

 I think i don’t like strava. I mean I don’t really know what any of these numbers mean in a greater context, but i don’t need to know them. It’s just for what little clout i could garner with an 11:13 10k, haha

Tough Mudder?

After getting home, my dad told me that I should join him the NEXT weekend for the Tough Mudder. 

I saw this on the website the first time and I was like NAH

It's a 5k with 13 obstacles like this one 😬😬

Those ropes have ELECTRICITY running through them. So you can crawl through the mud, or walk into the ropes, get shocked, drop, and THEN crawl through the mud.

OK this one was actually pretty fun. It was like a teamwork challenge where you spin these big blocks. No mud, just dirty water. VERY fun.

This one was kinda intimidating, and the holes were big enough that I think I could've fallen through but I didn't! No reason to worry about that!

These were honestly the worst challenges. The basic walls, because some guys could do it alone and when I couldn't I looked like a chump, haha

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If you don’t know what that is, It’s like a 5k through the woods and mud, and there’s all these obstacles along the way. There are walls to climb and trenches to crawl through, and even an electric barbed wire. This is the kind of thing that band nerd Kayode would have noped RIGHT OUT OF in high school. But if I could run a 10k, I could run half of that where I’m allowed to stop at obstacles. And so I did. 

Tough Mudder!!!

This thing was literally a blast. It was in my old hometown in Columbus Indiana, and was like summer camp and survivor mixed into one. A grand old time. I did it with my dad, brother, Brendan, and some other people from my church, and for the first time in literally my entire life, I felt athletic. I know that’s such a dorky thing to say, but I’ve always thought of myself as a band nerd who was bad at sports and anything athletic. That was just a mental jail! I could’ve been doing stuff like this the whole time!!

I texted The Boys right after and said we are 10,000% running a Tough Mudder this semester. Although, there aren’t any slated for this fall, there is a spartan race in FENWAY PARK this fall, so I might try to do that.

So the moral of the story

If you can’t find the courage to change, ask someone for help. I know I needed it, and I still need it now. I have soooooooooo many things I want to do, and so many blogs that I want to write. But I’m so obsessed with being perfect that I can’t even bring myself to write them. I’m sure someone out there wants to read about how Cru has been at MIT this last year, or how I placed SECOND at the MIT 2.007 competition, or maybe somebody wants to see Minesweeper Monday Episode 3…but probably not. No one ever asks me when it’s coming out or anything like that. 

But that’s my goal with this blog, and this school year. To keep my word. And I don’t mean with the precision of a diamond encrusted plasma cutter. Just something–anything– to get moving.

So that’s what this blog is. I know my dad will say that this blog is too long, haha, but I needed to write it. Because until I start, I’ll never get anywhere. 

When I used to get art journals in school, I would scribble all over the first page to break any idea that this journal had to be perfect. I would get so scared of making a bad drawing that I would never make anything. I was afraid of failure. 

No more! No more trying to be perfect! We’re making a lot of mistakes this year so we learn and get better!