At my workplace, we have company lunch once a month. We call it, “Table”. We are a small business, but big enough that we don’t talk too much across our primary teams. The host gave us a prompt to spark conversation around the table, “What were you like as a child?” That was the spark for not just the conversation around the table that do, but also for today’s musing.

A number of memories came to mind. As a child, I was not very assertive. One time, around second grade, I went to the park with my new ball. A bunch of kids gathered, and as often happens, they divided up into two teams to play. The thing was, I was the odd man out. It was my ball, but I wasn’t playing. I stood at the sidelines, upset, but didn’t do anything about this injustice. Along came a friend from school. I told Victor what happened, and he said, “if you don’t play, nobody plays,” which gave me the courage to take back my ball.

As a child, I could be a little achiever. Around fourth grade, our classroom had a box of math problem sets. The teacher would let us go to the box, pick out a card, take it back to our desk, and work at our own pace. I remember running to the box to get another card each time I finished one. In my memory I was completing card after card after card, beating everyone else in my class. I was pretty fast at math.

Those were the two memories that I shared in response to the prompt at work. As I hope that some day my grandkids will read these musings and learn about me (I don’t have any grandkids yet), I thought I would keep going in this post and see what comes to mind.

As a child, I tended to come in second place. I remember the times that I did not get first. In elementary school, we had an all-school spelling bee. In the final round, I went toe-to-toe with Belinda (or was in Delinda?). In the end, I mispelled, “chocolate,” and came in second. During summer school from 4th to 6th grade, we had chess tournaments. The year I was “supposed” to win, I choked in the final round and came in second. When I was 18, I came in third in a bodybuilding contest. In my twenties, I came in fourth, just short of a medal, in a Karate tournament. It stings when you lose, but there can only be one winner. Grandkids, your uncle Brendan and uncle Aidan, were always talking about the GOAT, the greatest of all time. “I’m the GOAT…”, they would say. There can only be one GOAT, I would tell them. Very, very, very few people can be the GOAT at something. The rest of us can celebrate when we’ve done a good job at whatever level of “win” we might achieve.

One more, and we’ll call it a wrap for this post. As a child, I learned to take responsibility. Because my parents spoke little English, I did a lot of translating–at JC Penny (a chain store that no longer exists) while shopping with my mom; following directions for somewhere we needed to go; making phone calls for my family’s business. I also took responsibility because my parents were always at work. One time around 5th grade, I had to take my little brother to the doctor when he hurt himself on the schoolyard. My grandma was technically the adult, but I took us to the doctor’s office. (We didn’t have Google maps back then, but Google is telling me today that it was a little over two miles.) On the way home, my grandmother was tired and asked if we could take the bus. I had never taken a bus before. I didn’t know how to figure it out. So we walked. Looking back, maybe I just didn’t want to ask. I learned later in life that my illiterate grandmother knew how to take the bus all over the bustling city of Hong Kong–Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. She would strap me on her back, and take me shopping and wherever else she needed to go. Maybe I should have listened to grandma.

Do these memories define “what I was like as a child?” They are the memories that came to me. I did not set up to describe myself as a child. But, I think, we remember certain bits and forget other bits because the ones we remember have shaped us into who we are. Not for today, but I could reflect on them more deeper reflection. In doing so, I might discover how these are not just memories, but also how they are paths that I took and continue to take.