There’s a particular kind of silence that settles over a schoolyard when teams are being chosen. You know the one. Feet shuffle, eyes are averted. And then it happens. The counting of remaining kids and the dawning realization that you’re among the last.
For many of us, that silence was a recurring soundtrack of childhood.
Schoolyard Arithmetic
It didn’t take long to figure out the math. The athletic kids went first. Then the popular ones. Then whoever the team captain liked. The bookish, the awkward, the shy, we were the remainders. The leftovers chosen by process of elimination.
The only reprieve came when your best friend happened to be picking sides. Suddenly, you were first. Loyalty is a beautiful thing. And the emotion of positive self-worth is fickle.
I’ve often wondered how earlier generations navigated this ritual. There’s something both timeless and telling about the way human beings sort themselves when given the chance to choose.
What We Carry Forward
Here’s what nobody tells you when you’re standing on that dirt playground, praying your name comes next: those moments are doing something to you. I experienced them as wounding. But I didn’t realize they were also shaping.
The question worth asking, years later, is: what did you do with it?
Did the sting of exclusion make you more attuned to the person standing alone at the office party? Did you learn to read a room? To spot the one who needs a welcome or a kind word, because you once were that person? Did you develop a finely tuned radar for cruelty dressed up as a joke?
Or maybe, like many of us, you found humor.
Laughter as Distance
The late Bob Newhart once offered a piece of wisdom that stuck with me:
“Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.”
There’s wisdom and intelligence in that. Many of the funniest people alive, comedians who’ve made careers out of self-deprecation and social observation, will tell you they were the awkward kid. The one who learned to get a laugh before someone else could get a jab in. Humor as shield, survival, and eventually, as genuine joy.
This isn’t a coping mechanism to be ashamed of. It’s resilience wearing a punchline.
Thriving, Not Just Surviving
Maya Angelou wrote about the human capacity not just to survive hardship but to thrive through it. And she did it with passion, compassion, humor, and style. These four words are worth carrying around in your pocket.
- Passion, because difficulty can clarify what actually matters to you.
- Compassion, because pain, when processed honestly, tends to soften us toward others.
- Humor, because life can be genuinely absurd, and laughter keeps us sane.
- Style, because carrying yourself through difficulty with grace has value.
The kid who was last picked doesn’t have to become someone who shrinks. They can become someone who sees, who notices, who includes, who knows firsthand what it costs to be overlooked.
I’ve learned to bring that innate sense of compassion, listening, and truly seeing into my work with clients. There’s a profound sense of empathy in drawing out a human being’s story and honoring it.
Your Story Matters
These aren’t small memories. They’re the sediment of who you are. What did being last, or left out, or underestimated, teach you? Did a painful moment plant something unexpected in you? Did you become a better friend, a braver person, a sharper wit?
Write it down. Tell someone. Send it to me.
The stories we share about hardship and what grew out of it are the ones that connect us. It’s not about the highlight reels, but the honest ones. The ones where we were last, and learned something worth keeping and paying forward.
(Digital art created using photo courtesy Philip White via Unsplash)