I’ve been a bad dad, I realized the other day. I had never shown my boys the grand days of world-wide phony-baloney wrestling.

This isn’t that glitzy crap that’s on today. It was the WWF, the World Wrestling Federation. The glory days of absurdly impossible maneuvers and shocking stereotype characters.

I haven’t seen one of these “matches” in decades, but phony-baloney wresting came up the other day, and my older son and I watched a few WWF “bouts.”

Aside from everything else, it’s moments like this when I realize what a great person he is to hang out with. We were cracking up. Snorting in amazement. He would shake his head and sputter, “This is ridiculous!” as Ivan Putzski delivered his Polish Hammer or Mr. Fuji (my god, the stereotypes) accidentally tossed salt into his partner’s eyes. How a dirty trick backfired! We roared while the announcers calmly described the improbability of one of the Wild Samoans (!) futilely trying to keep super-strong Tony Atlas in a full nelson–not happening!

Watching these zoomed me back into the past. We would tune in on our little TVs and absorb the spectacle. It couldn’t be real… but, I mean, look how seriously all these adults were taking it. The referee counting, counting… we didn’t know what he was counting, but he was always counting something. Those announcers narrating it all if it were a real athletic event, talking about the combatants’ strategies and how they had dealt with similarly difficult situations in past “bouts.” The juiced-up crowd exhorting Tito Santana, dazed on the concrete apron, to rise again or throwing debris at the Lumberjacks when Chief Jay Strongbow’s (!) tag team partner betrayed him.

Think about it: So many adults were in on the joke–almost like Santa Claus. I told my son we would sit in our dim carpeted rec rooms as tweens and there was this sliver of time when we debated whether it was all real. He laughed, and I did too, because these videos are so absurd, but it seemed real for a simple reason: Because everyone surrounding it was taking it so seriously!

The ref. The suit-wearing announcers. The crowd.

We had no Internet, and we leaped off our battered couches doing atomic elbow drops ourselves, thinking, maybe, just maybe…

But then we wised up. I think we were 13.

We realized that just because a bunch of nuts yell and scream and a few well-dressed people talk with a straight face that that didn’t make it all true. Damn, Jimmy Superfly Snuka was just a really athletic actor. Damn, there was no Santa.

We learned this stuff well before we learned to drive. It wasn’t that hard to recognize that it was easy to create a broad facade of falsehood, and as kids you could enjoy it, no harm done–but adults believing in the charade of Rowdy Roddy Piper?… well, they were friggin’ crazy!

We knew before we could drive how simple it was for people to play it straight in a big lie. Calling bs?: That’s solid knowledge that you would think would carry us all the way through life.

Tags: virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
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Most likely, you know about Simon Biles and the 2021 Olympics. I haven’t followed too closely the web scuttlebutt following her decision to withdraw from much of Olympic competition, only partially because I’m shutting myself off from Olympic news so as not to get spoilers every night.

I know that she specifically had the “twisties,” and, more importantly, has been inspirational in discussing mental health. Her health, of course, is interlocked with her positioning as one of the greatest athletes ever, but I wonder if, while she is an extraordinary person, that she has something in common with many others: She’s one of the yes-more people.

It’s tough being a yes-more person. You always say yes. You always do more.

The lives of yes-more people are often engulfed by expectations, accomplishments, roles, titles, and duties. For long stretches of time, they often do get it all done. They brim with pride when someone says, “How do you do it?”

But other times, they’re hollowed out, sleep-deprived, disoriented.

I can be a yes-more person. I don’t know when it all started, but I got in the mode of doing things, saying yes–both in local activities and at work–and increasingly piling on. I got involved, got organized, and wanted to meet the world. I kinda love it most of the time.

But once in a while, it has left me hollowed out, sleep-deprived, disoriented.

It is difficult to escape, because yes-more people get a strong sense of identity from these external measures of self. And this can be very difficult to notice.

I had an experience with a very wise counselor once. I had a holiday gift for her, a candle (of course purchased by my wife because I was too busy to get it myself). As I exited my car to deliver the gift, I was not only in a rush (because I was late!), but I also had in my hands too much stuff including a phone, wallet, keys (I mean, why use a pocket?), a book. I tried to then answer a phone call and grab the gift, which was wrapped and in a paper bag, at the same time.

Of course, I dropped the bag on the pavement. I heard the jar around the candle shatter. Damn! I thought, but I brought it to her anyway, so she could see I did have something. I showed her and promised I would take it back and return with a replacement soon.

Oh no, she said, relieving me of the bag, I want this one. I was puzzled. But she made clear the experience for me by saying, When you do too many things, something breaks. She kept that candle so she could remind me of that simple fact when I needed such reminding.

You can see that story resonated for me. I don’t always succeed in following the advice of the wise counselor. I still often become identified with my yes-more self.

Sometimes, world-class athlete or not, you have to say no. Go to one less meeting. Miss a workout. Admit you can’t do it.

Make no mistake, there are costs to saying no, missing things. But as I watched Biles’ smart interview with Mike Tirico at the end of her Olympic experience, I saw realizing your limits, even for the extraordinary, can help you avoid the more serious and sometimes dangerous costs of the yes-more person.

Tags: virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
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