“The biggest mistake is being afraid to make mistakes. To get better, you have to make a few errors until you get the hang of it. So don’t play it safe.”
— Venus Williams, entrepreneur, author, global tennis superstar
Every Thursday on Instagram, Venus Williams, seven-time major champion (including five Wimbledon championships), five-time Olympian, four-time Olympic gold medalist, and the owner of two successful businesses, carves time from a schedule lean on hours to offer free tennis tips and perceptive life lessons. She draws from nearly twenty-eight years on the professional tennis circuit and over thirty years of full living. By the numbers, her life has been grand. However, grand and easy are hardly synonymous. She was born and reared, in her early years, in Compton. Her father fought the streets for the poorly-maintained tennis courts on which she practiced. Venus’ particular existence was born of reason and risk: her father wanted a tennis champion and that was why she was conceived. That purpose with which he weighted her life might never have been rewarded in sports success. Just the same, boldly disregarding the alternative, Venus’ parents nurtured her and her baby sister to be dauntless and self-assured, to prepare well, believe in their preparation, and to take risks!
I was begrudgingly taking several dismaying risks at once, as the knees of my life shook anxiously.
Darius E Bennett, Esq.
In tennis points are won or lost either when someone decisively wins a point or when the other commits an error. Entire matches often turn on a player’s penchant for or aversion to chance. The question becomes: win or lose, on whose terms will this match end? Still, even more importantly, what is gained from something lost?
I, by nurture, am risk-averse. I am the person who stands off to the side and witnesses others leap boundlessly into possibilities and adventures. Among my friends, I am the one of us more likely to chronicle their stories, having safely observed my friends fully engaged in their making. At age 6, I walked away from little league football –although I reportedly was quite good– because I feared the bigger players would heap on me while I was trapped at the bottom of a pile. I was born 8 pounds 9 ounces, but gradually shrunk down to the runt of my parents’ litter. I began my life shrinking. I spent decades living the old adage “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” before I slowly began taking calculated risks. Oddly, I am prone to attract friends and mates who have spent their entire lives diving head first into the bush! It would seem that life connects us with our complementary opposites.
And that is how I landed in Atlanta in 2005, on the urging of a mate that we leave behind friendships we spent decades nourishing in Chicago for the promise of something new and unknown in the Southeast’s burgeoning metropolis. That, at least, was how I assessed it aloud. Truthfully and inwardly, I left Chicago a coward, having feared what life would be for me after finishing law school and anticipating how poorly my credentials would measure against those of other attorneys. (A tale for another blog.)
Before leaving, I was certain that I would grow old in Chicago, that I would while away my final years there with decades-old friends. My life in Chicago was sure, largely predictable, and mostly careful. I was insulated from risk by social connections, a well-established reputation for hard-work, and more than an ample portion of naiveté, a vestige of my Christian upbringing and of the idyllic summers spent with my maternal grandparents.
Paradoxically, in Chicago I felt safe.
In Atlanta, I felt so unsure! Essentially, I only knew my brother, his wife, and their two small children. I also had a maternal uncle there, but he and I were not bonded by the same close ties that he and my oldest brother shared. Uncle Dan has always regarded me lovingly, but Chris was and is his pride and joy, even relative to his own children. And that has always made sense to me because Chris is exemplary, especially in his younger brother’s estimation. Chris and I were separated by his graduation from high school in 1992. He was my original best friend, and his departure felt like abandonment, although I would not understand that until I was well into my forties. Through counseling, I would later learn that perhaps his graduation and seemingly-abrupt departure touched off in me a resistance to change that I would not shed until my mid-forties. So, his presence in Atlanta became the surety I needed. And for these reasons, I leapt into the freefall that was moving to a city I little understood, with no job, and a mate I had only known for one and a half years. I was begrudgingly taking several dismaying risks at once, as the knees of my life shook anxiously.
I also found that I had not lost my friends in Chicago. They began to reach out more and to visit Atlanta often.
Darius E Bennett, Esq.
We arrived in a Penske truck and a Honda Civic, in late May of 2005. Chris met us at our new apartment building and helped us unload everything, even the last straggling bag of nonsense! He jokingly (read: lovingly) assured me that I would be just fine because there was a Krispy Kreme store next door to the building, and it had a fully-functioning “Hot Donut” sign. He and I had lived apart for twelve years, but he still remembered that if anything brought me immediate joy it was a Krispy Kreme donut melting delectably in my mouth! But how had he seen the worry obscured behind my smile? Perhaps the smile was uneasy. Comforted, I felt my feet steady underneath me, but still was unsure I had made the right move. Dutiful and tired, Chris left us to our adjustment period. I had hidden regret in my heart as I waved goodbye. I thought, “Atlanta is not Chicago, and I am no longer home.” Proverbially, I was stark naked in Time Square, and not even a donut could clothe me in assurance! Nevertheless, I ate six in one sitting, for research purposes.
I sat the Bar in July and received news I passed in October. In the meanwhile, I worked nearly two months as the assistant to the executive assistant for Atlanta Public School’s math and science director. That felt familiar because being the assistant to an executive assistant was also my first official job out of college, in Chicago. A month before I received the Bar results, I was hired on at a personal injury firm with the caveat that if I did not receive passing results, I would be released. My new boss had previously hired a law graduate, whom he paid a handsome wage, but who could not pass the bar on his first, second, or third attempts. I understood the quandary, and told my future boss that I hoped to still be with the firm in October. I remained there six years –that felt like ten!– and left as the second-seat attorney, only behind the owner himself.
I discovered that in leaving Chicago behind I lost all past assurances but gained a promising career in one of the busiest litigation markets.
I also gained tennis! I had played a little on-and-off in Chicago, but with very little training and even less skill! With the winter and cold months far exceeding the warmer months, in Chicago there was little time to improve before the next cold front. When the cold relented, other tennis fanatics bogarted the handful of publicly-available courts and would “graciously” allow us a precise hour of play, on “their” (publicly-owned) courts. Atlanta, in relief, was abundant in tennis spaces. Even the recreational tennis players abounded! While in Chicago I hit tennis no more than four times a year, that paled held against the four times a week I had begun to play in Atlanta. I improved greatly, and began to value my skill set above its station! A few dozen losses would bring me down to earth, but I would gain a community of fellow tennis fanatics. It was tremendous! I also found that I had not lost my friends in Chicago. They began to reach out more and to visit Atlanta often. In short, in leaving Chicago, I left behind a closing season of certainty, but paucity, and gained a life of bountiful opportunities; and, that was grand!
I would eventually move away from Atlanta, but in the final the assessment of my years there, I adjudged my career a frustrated success and acknowledged that I had gained far more exposure to key development opportunities than I would have in Chicago. I grew up and shed most of my guilelessness. I learned to walk away from what no longer served me, including relationships. I began to accept both the joys and dangers of risks. In 2011, I left Atlanta for Savannah, where I took so many risks the experience was practically vertiginous! I spent months in over my head, and lost an intimate relationship of nine years. Yet, my life felt full! So, I learned to forgive myself, to embrace the missteps and errors. And, with this forgiveness, I earned peace. For Alexander Pope was sagacious when he assessed that “to err is human, to forgive divine.”
