Three brave decisions: Silence, Saying No, And Walking Away.
John Rohn

Pádraig won a scholarship to study and swim in Lexington, Kentucky, following his leaving cert.

During the week, I came across his picture (above) from a competition when I was looking for something else in his old room upstairs. It reminded me of this time when he was aiming for the stars in the pool.

He experienced what it meant to swim for a First Division US College: focussed training, fantastic tutoring, and free travel to competitions across the United States. The undergraduate programme in Kentucky covered four years. He was going to be able to develop to his full potential with any possible support behind him. Without having to pay a single cent. It felt like a dream come true.

During the first year, when we visited him, we noticed how his physique was changing. Broader shoulders, more muscles. He was changing from a boy to a man.

Pádraig enjoyed the camaraderie, his and his team’s swimming successes, and the guidance he got from his fantastic swimming coach and his knowledgable academic tutor. Swimming came first but, like all scholarship students, he also had to perform well academically in order to continue with his swimming programme and scholarship.

The possibilities and the promises were endless.

It was an exciting year for Pádraig. But not exciting enough to make him stay a second, or third, never mind a fourth year. He missed his friends, the Dublin music scene, the Irish speaking community, his family. He realised the magnitude of the sacrifice he had to make in order to, perhaps, get a chance to swim, one day, in the Olympics.

In the end, he decided that while he clearly had a good chance to make it to the Olympics, there was no guarantee he would actually make it.

He stayed on and did his very best for his team. But then, he decided to say ‘no’ – he garnered all his courage and decided to walk away.

It was an incredible brave decision, one that not everybody supported or understood.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions he had ever made in his life.

Back in Dublin, studying Irish and History in TCD, he had the time of his life. As happy as one could wish to be.

He had decided to go for a different galaxy and became one of the brightest of a Sky Full Of Stars.

The moment he closed that door to a potentially great, but ultimately lonely, swimming career, another one opened up. One that brought him a deep feeling of happiness. A sense of belonging and of purpose.

This time, the change we saw in him was less physical, it was more in the way he was: ‘rundherum’ content, balanced, and happy.

Most amazingly, like in a sky full of stars, the darker it got the brighter is shines.