Double Take: Introducing co-author Gabe Magee

Wes: This week I said my annual private good-bye to a past author and welcomed a new one. This act was performed, as are most rituals in our world today, by moving a folder, in this case “11. Kyra Haas,” from a folder named “Column” into another named “Archive” and creating a new folder named “12. Gabe Magee” in its place. With that metaphorical stroke of a pen, Gabe is now officially our 12th Double Take co-author, the third young man to take that role, and the second from Bishop Seabury Academy.

Double Take columnists Gabe Magee and Dr. Wes Crenshaw

As I co-author Gabe’s first column, I am half a block from the New York Times building, absorbing inspiration as I gaze upon it through the window of my not-terribly-swank Manhattan sliver hotel. Most young people know that the New York Times exists. Far fewer have actually read it or even looked at its webpage, which costs money in a world of unlimited free information. The same is true for papers all over the country as well as our hometown.

That wasn’t the case 11 years ago when we started Double Take. Then kids still read the paper. Literally. They held up the broadsheet and committed its inked words to their short-term memories. Today, Double Take is written more for parents to pass on to their kids or help them offer (hopefully) wise guidance on personal problems, political intrigues, and cultural changes.

Last week I was at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. There, one cannot misunderstand the importance of a free press to a democracy. The unfettered interchange of ideas, no matter how thoughtful, wacky, or at times even dangerous, forms a pillar of our society and teaching kids to discern which ideas are which should be among our highest priorities.

That’s one reason Double Take is important. Here, we make a small contribution to the future of journalism by giving a teenager an early shot at the power of a free press. Letting him or her write commentary out there for everyone to see. After I wrote this, I tweeted a shot of the New York Times to Kyra Haas with the note, “Here’s where you’ll end up next…if it’s still around.”

Let’s hope it is.

I have no doubt that Gabe Magee will be more than ready to engage in this interchange of ideas, as we both do our best to help parents move another generation of teens into adulthood as good consumers of information and intelligent actors upon it. Keeping with tradition, Gabe has chosen his first topic.

Gabe: Be confident, but know thyself.

Almost everyone wants to succeed, but because of success’s abstract nature, it’s hard to pin down how it is obtained. A lot of snippets of advice attribute it to mental preparation, highlighting especially confidence and belief in one’s self as the underlying cause of success. An example would be any variant of “If you can dream it, you can do it.” However, like most things, the truth is much more complicated than that.

When facing a new challenge, it’s only common sense that doubting a successful outcome decreases your chances of achieving it. But there’s more to mental preparation than that. Confidence helps you visualize a path to that goal, and then reach it. By judging how well you did in the past, you can understand your readiness for what lies ahead. Of course, this does not work if you’ve misjudged yourself or your ability.

Consider the backup point guard on a basketball team. As the yearly sub-state tournament is approaching, the starter, who she usually replaces, is out. The backup reasons that her performance off the bench proves that she can start and lead the team through four quarters. But her confidence is premature and untested. Perhaps she does not do as well as she had thought. Things could go the other way as well. Think of a boy who doesn’t want to go to a party with friends because he thinks he will be awkward or embarrass himself. He underestimates his social abilities, thinking that he doesn’t have it in him to be outgoing and misses out on a fun night with his friends.

Many teenagers aren’t very good at judging themselves. Some think too little of themselves, some too much, and because insecure people sometimes overcompensate, it’s hard to know which is which. As we begin to examine ourselves more and more, we come to realize when it’s ok to be confident and when it’s better to exercise caution.

— Wes Crenshaw, Ph.D., ABPP, is author of “I Always Want to Be Where I’m Not: Successful Living with ADD & ADHD.” Learn about his writing and practice at dr-wes.com. Gabe Magee is a Bishop Seabury Academy senior.