It pays when you believe in your next best

"I deleted it. Let's do it one last time", said my son. His adrenaline rush was contagious. "Let's do it", I responded and gathered my mobile to record his activity.

It was an activity, "double juggle", given to players during the great COVID19 lockdown by his football coach. Players had to double tap a football for as long as possible. Player with max duration wins. My task was to record and submit a video of my son doing the double juggle, easy!

Take 1, 23 taps. Take 2, 27 taps. Tap 3, opps he dropped the ball at the 17th tap. After the 6th take my son started feeling the pain and I was getting drained. "We should have recorded it last evening, when I did 43 taps", said my son.

With a bit of motivation and multiple retries we managed to record him do 40 taps. All good to submit and I went back to cutting fruits for our breakfast.

Few minutes later, I heard a not so exciting voice from my back, "Can you record it one more time please?". I could have done 100 more recording but I wanted to see if he really wanted to do it. I said, "The next will be the final one that we submit, irrespective of what the count is. But, you will have to delete all previous recordings, before you try again. Ok?". My wife and son's sharp and unforgiving gaze on my chest pierced my heart, which started beating fast. 

In one swift movement, my son grabbed the phone, deleted all videos and handed it back to me before taking his stance to double juggle. Now, my heart started pounding and I steadied my hands to record one last time! 

He believed that he will do better than the last time and my belief in him become bested!  His confidence was contagious and we started the drill. My wife's jubilant voice shouted 45 when my son lost control of the ball and my thumb finger tapped the stop recording button. We did it and submitted the video to his coach 5 mins before the set deadline.

Our living room felt like a football ground and my son was celebrating his achivement. That hard gaze of my wife turned mellow and I could hear her say, "You did that to get the next best of him, and we did it!"

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