Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Ante Meridiem

I'm a much more effective human being before noon. I accomplished more in the 30 minutes before 7 this morning than I did in the 5 hours after 7 last night... and the night before that... and the night before that... and I don't know for sure, but probably the night before that too. Oddly enough, I wouldn't really call myself a morning person. I'm just too easily distracted. It's too easy for me to come home after work, sign on to aim, check my e-mail, do a little reading and then look up to see that it's pushing midnight and I need to hit the sack. There are much fewer distractions at the times that most of my friends would consider "ungodly". My house is quieter, my neighborhood is quieter, my instant messenger is quieter and even independent of all that- my mind is more focused. I'm fresher as a whole and I don't have all that mud from a long day clinging to my mind or my muscles. Everything just seems easier. Well... except for that whole getting out of bed thing.

For the last week or so I've been trying to get out of bed earlier and despite the fact that my conscious mind knows full well that this is exactly what I want to do, my subconscious (which, unfortunately is the part that has authority when I'm asleep) frequently refuses to cooperate. Yesterday I slept through three blaring alarm clocks and yesterday wasn't anywhere near the first time. I've tried going to bed earlier, I've tried scheduling things that I really want to do (like blogging, or working out) for early in the morning, I've tried setting several alarm clocks and scattering them around the room, but nothing seems to be working with any consistency. If somewhere in the back of my mind I know I don't have work within an hour (and sometimes even then) it takes an insane amount of effort to get me out of bed. That coupled with the fact that I eat too slowly to properly enjoy a bowl of cereal makes it significantly more difficult for me to accomplish things in the morning. But, I'm trying, and it's still working better than trying to get things done at night, so I guess I can't complain.

Consciously I hate being asleep. I always feel like I have so many things that I should, could or want to be doing in a day that throwing away 1/3 of those 24 hours seems completely ridiculous. I usually end my day by reluctantly passing out in front of my computer and begrudgingly rolling into my bed, just so 8 hours later I can reverse the process and just as begrudgingly roll out of it... or, as is frequently the case: not.

I just really need to get my life in order. I'm coming off a really long summer and I'm super excited to be back at work, but I've got a lot that I want to do and I haven't been doing it. I feel like I'm falling behind on a lot of my 6-12 month plans because I'm simply too disorganized and undisciplined. I know what I have to do, and, in my mind at least, I want to do them, I just can't stop myself from wasting my time doing other things that I don't really care about. It's a very frustrating feeling, but... updating my blog for the first time in months (and before 9am too!) is definitely a step in the right direction. Next step: laundry.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Thin Ice

I just had a long conversation with [someone who I can only assume is a] former friend about what it means to be a friend, about what it means to forgive someone and about what it means to maintain a friendship with someone who has hurt you. Needless to say this (potentially) former friend and I didn't see eye-to-eye on these issues, but more worrisome than that is considering how my other friends may feel about them.

Each and every one of my closest friends has not only hurt me, as I believe that's inevitable in any relationship that lasts, but also maliciously and deeply betrayed me. How have I responded? I've always forgiven them. Always. And I'm not talking about this, “well, I'll be your friend, but I'm still mad at you” bullshit type forgiveness (is that even really forgiveness?), but real, full-on, you're still my best friend, I still love you, I still trust you, I still have your back, it's as if it never happened because I really truly forgive you forgiveness. I just assumed that I could expect the same from them.

As fate would have it, I've done some really dumb things over the last year. I've betrayed a lot of the people closest to me and, understandably, scared away a handful of my friends. But, as I expected, most of the people that I've been close to for a long time, including many of the people who I hurt the worst, have stuck around, have had my back, have been my friend, have forgiven me... or maybe they've just been acting like it.

7 days ago I slept through my own birthday party and woke up without a friend within 50 miles. I was baffled by the fact that the people at the party that I missed were not disappointed, not worried, but angry. Really? Angry? For 6 days I couldn't put two and two together. I couldn't help but think that if one of my friends worked all day and slept through their birthday party, I'd feel sorry for them... worried about them... maybe a little disappointed... but angry? Definitely not angry. It wasn't until it was suggested to me that I've been on “thin ice” that it started to make sense why everyone was so upset. I told the person that I was arguing with today that if he can't forgive me for the mistakes that I've made, then it doesn't make sense for us to call ourselves friends.

“Sticking around” to see if I can “make up” for my mistakes is not what a friend would do. Either you forgive me or you don't and that's your choice. Everyone in my life knows who I am, knows what I'm about and knows if I'm the kind of person who they want in their lives. I'm entitled to mistakes just like everyone else and if you don't think I am: that's your problem, not mine. I would never ask my friends to live a life on thin ice, and I won't have them asking that of me. If we have a problem, and you can't get over the things that I've done: that's on you and I'm not going to be bothered with it.

It's worth mentioning that this isn't the first social event I've skipped out on this summer. I'm not trying to portray myself as a victim and I do understand that people have legitimate reasons for being upset. I think it goes without saying that I'm sorry that I missed my party and that it obviously wasn't a malicious act. For me, knowing that would be all it would take to forgive someone, if only the people closest to me felt the same way...

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Thanks mom.

As I approach the oven from my sanctuary atop a step stool, reluctant to reach out and actually grab the tempura shrimp from the stove top, my nemesis sprints out from beneath the greasy black appliance, runs head first into the "wood" paneling on the far side of the kitchen and slithers his (or her) way into the cabinet under the sink. I take a deep breath and look around to see my mom's cooking supplies, her snacks and leftovers and various coffee cups (i don't drink coffee) spread out along the kitchen counters. Of course in my mother's mind it's my fault we have mice.

I've finally figured out exactly what it was that has bothered me so much about my mom these last 10 years. It's not the blatant hypocracy (although that doesn't help), it's the fact that she can't go 10 minutes without giving unsolicited advice. Uninformed, inaccurate, unhelpful, hypocritical, bad advice. Every tidbit of anything that she overhears or snoops out turns into ammo for her half informed AK47 of emotional destruction. For years she's been asking me why I never want to talk to her, why I never tell her what's going on in my life, and until now, I never really knew. But tonight, when she came to tell me about the ways I can be more careful as to "not attract rodents" it became painfully obvious why I moved out when I was 18, why I've talked to her as little as possible over the last 6 years and why it's so depressing being back here now. She's nosy and pushy and, an overwhelming percentage of the time, just plain old wrong. I'm getting a headache just thinking about it.

It's been a long week. I've spent a lot of time just thinking about how and how soon I'll be able to get out of here. More than once I've left the house and wandered aimlessly, just to get away from my mom's badgeresque behavior. On the bright side, I'm getting a lot of exercise and doing a lot of reading. On the not so bright side, I think I'm losing my mind.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Real Subtle Lady...

Tan walking shoes.
Saggy black jeans.
Green turtleneck.
Gray zip-up jacket (hood down).

Sometimes living here in the Bay Area gives you a false sense of confidence. You start to believe that being in America's most liberal city means you don't have to deal with ignorant people. You forget that, no matter how hard we believe in equality and open mindedness, we still live in a racist nation. And even here, where our prejudices tend to be a little more subtle and often times choked back altogether, you will still occasionally catch a middle-aged white woman making a minor, but painfully obvious, detour to avoid crossing paths with a young black man.

"Look around! You couldn't find a whiter, safer or better lit part of this city. But this white woman sees two black guys, who look like UCLA students, strolling down the sidewalk and her reaction is blind fear. I mean, look at us! Are we dressed like gang-bangers? Huh? No. Do we look threatening? No. Fact, if anybody should be scared around here, it's us: We're the only two black faces surrounded by a sea of over-caffeinated white people, patrolled by the triggerhappy LAPD. So you tell me, why aren't we scared?"

It was about 2:30pm, a beautiful day, and I had hardly noticed her walking ahead of me under the BART tracks. That is, until she glanced back. Nervously, half heartedly, at me- over her shoulder. I couldn't help but smirk as I looked down the block behind me. "Yup," I thought, giggling a little bit "just you and me". A few seconds later, when she veered suddenly to her right, over the grass divider between the "bike path" (that we had both been walking on) and the "ped path", I couldn't help but chuckle and shake my head. "You should be ashamed of yourself," I thought. I smiled wide, looked her in her eyes and waved cheerily as she stood still off on the side and I walked merrily past her. Shockingly, she didn't reciprocate. "I really hope she's ashamed of herself," I thought as I giggled my way down the rest of the block. When I got to the corner and looked back to see her standing half a block behind me, I laughed loudly. I wanted to yell "you're a disappointment to everything that Berkeley represents!" but I decided against it. Instead I just waved a friendly goodbye, laughed again and went back to my day dreaming.

That had happened to me once before, in the same part of town actually, but when I was in high school (I was A LOT smaller when I was in high school). I was walking to my girlfriend's house, day dreaming, as usual, when the woman walking in front of me suddenly pulled a 180. "Are you following me?!" The 140 pound (about the same as me) Asian woman screamed.
Startled, I reeled back, sure that I hadn't heard her correctly. "Wha... What?"
"Are you following me?! Where are you going?!"
I rolled my eyes and shook my head as I walked past her. "Get over yourself," I thought.

Racism and prejudice are bad. I know that and I don't want to encourage that type of behavior- but I don't live in a part of the world where I have to worry about being dragged around off the back of someone's truck, so there's a little wiggle room for the part of me that gets a kick out of knowing that a complete stranger is afraid of me. It makes me want to mess around with them. It makes me want to run up behind them and go "oogi-boogey-boo!", just to see how high they jump, and then apologize profusely, patting them on the back, smiling wide (probably giggling) and telling them that I just couldn't help myself. At the same time though, there's a part of me that is deeply saddened to know that after all these years, in a community as diverse as this one, some people can't help but be afraid of a black face. A friend of mine always says "it's the kind of thing that you have to laugh at to stop yourself from crying," and I don't feel that way about many things, but racism, and the irrational fear of a 24-year-old black man day dreaming about his D&D character is one of them.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Two Face

I have a love/hate relationship with the concept of a schedule. There's a big part of me that desires order, appreciates predictability and values routine, but at the same time there's a part of me that loves spontaneity, freedom and just a little bit of chaos. Over the years I've had a really hard time balancing my need to know what I'll be doing with my desire to be able to do whatever comes up and I'm not sure I've got it quite figured out yet.

Today was the first day in two weeks that I didn't have any obligations, so I took some time to clean my room, do some laundry and generally get my life organized. Several hours later, when my living space was vaguely, well, livable- I sat down in front of my computer and tried to organize my time. As always, my attempt to plot out a schedule started out smoothly with my plunking down my work obligations and various routine tasks (baseball on Sundays, basketball on Mondays, showers every third Tuesday, etc.). And, as always, this is where I ran into a problem. When I have something that I want to do, but not a set time that it needs to be done in, then I have a real hard time plugging it into my schedule. Even worse, when I do plug such a thing into my schedule, I have a very hard time actually following through with that time commitment. Even with things that are important to me and that I enjoy, I have a hard time completing because of this awkward and somewhat arbitrary desire to do something, anything different. Anything random. Anything unplanned. Anything... else. I know you won't believe this, but I sometimes even have trouble updating my blog on time!

I feel like I have a tormented soul. Like I'll always be torn between two extremes. Like I'm a real life Harvey Dent. Half neurotic neat freak, half bucking bronco. There a big part of me that enjoys and even cherishes my spontaneous side, a very big part. A part big enough that I worry that th orderly angel on my shoulder (with the day planner in his pocket) is be drowned out more often than he should be.

I appreciate having fun, I enjoy having fun and, in fact, I even believe that having fun is the most important thing in life. I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with going out every night, I don't have a problem switching things up at the last minute and I don't have a problem ditching my blog to go shoot pool every now and then. The only problem I have is finding the right balance between the many many things that I want to do and the many many things that I want to get done.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

I Can't Believe It's Not Confidence!

A slump is a funny little thing. It's sneaky. It pokes it's head out when you're not looking, when everything is going great and you'd never expect it. Then, out of nowhere, wham! You're stuck tighter than two pages in Playboy. Which, at first ain't so bad. You know that's the way it goes sometimes, that everybody goes through it and that, eventually, you'll pull out of it. And then a couple of days go by. And a couple of weeks. And a couple of months. And that's when you start to wonder. And right then, at that moment, mid-thought, before you even realize that you're wondering if you'll ever pull out of it- that's when the slump wins. That's when it grabs you by the neck and gives it to you hard- right in the junk. That's when it gets really bad. That's when the slump kicks it into high gear. That's when your 1 for 4s with a strike out and an error turn into 0-5s with 3 strike outs and 2 errors. Once you lose your confidence- you lose everything.

Over the last few weeks I've encountered a fair number of minor frustrations and disappointments and I feel like I'm in a bit of a funk. Things haven't been awful, in fact, I've had some great times recently, but amidst the many ups and downs I've noticed an overall trend that's having a negative effect on my energy, confidence and performance.

It's a weird little slump I'm in. My performance hasn't dropped off noticeably, but just this week I noticed that my confidence was shot. I've been doubting myself at baseball, I've been second guessing myself at work. I've caught myself silently shaking my head at myself more times than I'd like and generally thinking too much in the past tense.

At baseball on Sunday (after another untimely strike out), I made an unusual decision: I decided to be confident. Despite my performance and despite my complete and utter lack of confidence, I decided to do something I've never done before: fake it. That's when something really interesting happened: my game turned around.

Confidence is a funny little thing. It's sneaky. It pokes it's head out when things are going terrible and you'd never expect it, when you think you're just faking it and telling yourself that you believe when really you don't. The great thing about wannabe confidence is that, in my experience, it works just as well as the real thing.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Last week of school

As you already know, I showed up at work on Monday grumpy, frustrated and generally upset. Then I remembered that I love my job. It was kind of a bittersweet thing to remember, since part of my frustration was that my job was going to be ending this week, but my kids have been really sweet this the last few days. Almost enough to bring a tear to my eye just thinking about it. Luckily, I'm a man... and there's no one in my room right now to question my statements. Ehem. Football. The female anatomy. Miscellaneous man stuff. OK, much better. Now where'd that tissue go?

All joking aside, I'm really going to miss these guys. Obviously, the 8th graders and students who won't be back next year most of all, but even the ones that I will be seeing again in September. It's amazing how important they've become to me over just 3 months.

At some point on Monday, while I was busy being grumpy, frustrated and generally upset, the sixth grade class made thank you cards to give to their favorite teachers. I got three. My jaw dropped when the first student ran through the door at 3 o'clock, yelled "Kenyatte! I made you a card!", sprinted across the portable waving a piece of purple construction paper at me, threw her arms around my waist, smiled giddily and presented me with the card. I stood there stunned as the grouch inside me melted away and an unwilling smile spread from one ear to the other.

Somehow, that was just the beginning. Yearbooks were distributed on Tuesday and I couldn't help but smile when 3 of my students nearly killed each other in a mad dash to see who would get me to sign their yearbook first. Then the rest of the school came and my arm almost went numb from over yearbook signification. I've never felt so appreciated in my whole life.

Yesterday was the fifth grade graduation. The major emotions associated with this event were pride and joy as, for the most part, I'll be seeing all these kids next year. On top of those, was eager anticipation, as I work mostly with the middle school students and will, in fact, get to know most of these kids better next year than I did this year, which I'm looking forward to. Today's the big one though. Today's the 8th grade graduation. The going away graduation. The goodbye forever graduation. There's at least a 50% chance that I'll be brought to tears. I never thought people could have such an emotional impact on me in just three months, but I'm already looking back on these 3 months as one of the happiest periods in my life and I'm really going to miss these kids.

I love my job. For the next 2 1/2 months, I'll be missing my job and looking forward to September. To a class of new first graders, a class of new 6th graders and 9 months as good as these three.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Stress

My mind is flooded. My back is sore. My relationships are strained. My shower is broken. That's pretty much my week in a nutshell.

I was more frustrated last night than I've been in several months and, for the first time in a long time I felt like I just wanted to sit alone and mope. So I did. I flaked out on a social engagement for the second time in 3 days and sat at home. Half moping, half contemplating, half cleaning my bathroom and half misusing fractions. I think I really needed the wind down though, because this morning felt a lot better. Coming to work and seeing my little devils rehearsing their graduation song brightened my morning, but was also a very finite reminder that this Friday is the last time I'm going to see them for awhile and that I'm going to miss them a lot over the summer.

I have my first catering shift of the year on Saturday and frankly, I'm not very excited about it. I'd rather be working with kids, but I've been rather half-assed about looking for a summer job and I'm afraid that most of those doors are (best case scenario) closing fast.

I think I deal with stress much differently than most people. I don't panic, I don't really worry even- my mind just floods and I struggle to put thoughts together. It makes it really hard to write. It makes it really hard to do anything... or, at least, do anything well.

I had a very frustrating game of baseball yesterday. I under performed, got unlucky and (by his own admission) was victimized by the umpire. For those of you scoring at home, that's three strikes. Often times a good baseball experience can help pull me out of an emotional slump, but, I guess that'll have to wait until next week.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Can't live with 'em...

Strange women frighten me. That's right. I said it. They don't frighten me in a Godzilla is coming, run as fast as you can sort of way, but they frighten me enough that I spent 4 hours at a packed club last night and only managed to approach 1 woman... who, as a friend of a friend, was minimally strange and who, technically speaking, I probably can't take credit for approaching.

I spent the other 3 hours and 55 minutes at the club last night thinking about why I have such hard time approaching women. Ironically, I consider myself a pretty outgoing guy and I know I'm a great conversationalist. I've worked more than just a few years in retail sales and don't usually have a hard time approaching strangers. Away from the club or bar scene, in fact, you'll frequently find me smiling at strangers, stopping to say hi, or starting a conversation with a witty comment. I would guess that it was the sexually charged atmosphere of the bar/club scene that makes me nervous, but I used to attend house parties damn near every week and never had a hard time approaching, talking to or freakin with the pseudo-strangers I'd meet at those. Admittedly, random club girl #227 is definitely more foreign than random party girl #5, but my mental block is nowhere near proportionate to the degrees of separation I have from the women that I'm (theoretically) talking to. Or maybe it is.

I can't quite figure this one out. I thought writing my thoughts down would help... it hasn't. My friends last night told me that I was putting too much thought into the situation. I responded by telling them that I was a thinker, that's what I do, and as soon as I wrapped my skull around this, I'd be set... 12 hours later, it doesn't make any more sense than it did when I ordered that first drink and I've only got 12 hours until my next obligatory face-saving attempt of a club trip. So, completely on my own, with no encouragement from others, I've decided that I've been over thinking the situation. I still haven't figured it out, but hopefully at some point in the next 12 hours I'll convince myself not to care, not to worry so much about understanding and to just follow my instincts. Hopefully this approach will stop me from blogging about this again tomorrow, only time (and perhaps tomorrow's blog) will tell...

Thursday, May 29, 2008

This Week In Sports

This has been a pretty devastating week for me in the world of fitness. On Sunday, I made two errors on routine fly balls in the 10th inning of a baseball game that, when put politely, "directly contributed" to my team's loss. I followed that up on Monday by freeing what experts tell me is some form of ancient exercise equipment called a "weight bench" from beneath the vines, cobwebs and wildlife in my backyard. Archaeologists estimate that the equipment was last used at some point during the Kennedy administration. Then on Tuesday, when running up the stairs to catch a BART train, I tripped and found myself laying face down in the bricks as I heard my train pull away. I managed to not embarrass myself much yesterday, but made up for it today by bowling a combined 300 in 6 games and then losing to a 12-year-old in 1-on-1 basketball.

On a "completely unrelated" note, I've decided to recommit myself to a standard of general physical fitness. I am going to start lifting weights regularly again, ride my bike more, find more time for exercise and just keeping myself in the kind of shape that I can be happy with.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

If it's only kinda broke...

So about a month ago I noticed that I was falling roughly 33% short of my goal of blogging in the neighborhood of three times a week. To correct this problem I decided to tweak my blogging schedule just a bit; find a time when I'd be a little bit more likely to sit down and write for a while, and see how that worked.

Those of you who have been paying attention may have noticed that that plan, in execution, didn't pan out quite the way that I had drawn it up. I'm actually kinda okay with that though. I think of myself as a bit of an explorer these days and I'm learning to be okay with trying out new ideas that, as is the nature of new ideas, don't always work out. It can be a little disappointing sometimes, it can and certainly has lead me into trouble , but it always gives me something to learn from. Every new experiment shows me what I can, can't, should, shouldn't, will or won't do and in a lot of ways, learning those things are worth the lumps that they come with.

For a long time in my life I was very content, which is exactly why I don't want to be that anymore. Contentment is lazy. Contentment is apathy. Contentment is the polar opposite of growth. If you're happy with what you have, you're not going to put work into improving it. Not to say that I'm not happy right now, I am- but it'd be ridiculous to assume that I couldn't be happier, so why not try?

A lot of people say that if something's not broke, you shouldn't try to fix it. I actually disagree. I think that if something's not perfect, then I should be doing everything I can to perfect it. I mean... why wouldn't I? Worst case scenario, it comes out worse than it was, and I go back to what I had before. My friends from baseball get a good chuckle out of the fact that I'm constantly tweaking my approach at the plate, my approach in the field, my approach on the basepaths, whatever. I'm always trying something new. My ideas come out a little goofy sometimes, but as it stands now, I'm one of best players in the group and my game is constantly improving. That's well worth the occasional strike out, a few missed blogs, and generally looking goofy every now and then.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Out of Sight

I'm notoriously bad at keeping in touch with people who I don't see on a regular basis. What makes it worse is that I'm also really bad at returning phone calls, e-mails and the like, so I frequently go months and years without speaking with relatively close friends for... well... no reason at all. This morning I received an e-mail from an old friend informing me that I had "fallen off the edge of the world... again". When I read that I felt somewhat embarrassed and ashamed that I had gone a few months without talking to him, but it really made me think about the several friends who I've gone several months or even years without as much as a phone call.

My elementary school best friend and I went two years without speaking to each other when he went to one of Berkeley's middle schools and I went to the other. History would've repeated itself when my high school best friend went to a JC a massive 20 miles away. Looking back now, I feel like the only thing that kept our friendship going was the fact that he was persistent in calling me. I can't say for sure that I called him once. Not because I didn't want to talk to him... I definitely did... but... really... I don't know. It's something I'm going to have to put some serious thought into.

Right now, I have a handful of friends who I used to hang out with on literally a daily basis who, for no reason at all, I haven't spoken to in months or years. Whenever I stumble upon situations like this, I just chuckle and think of a line from the movie Bad Boys II. The Cuban crime boss is standing in the attic of his mansion watching a rat infestation eat his money. He turns to his henchman and says, "this is a stupid fucking problem to have." The problem of not speaking with my friends has a pretty straight forward one-step solution: speak to my friends. Make more phone calls, send more e-mails, call just to say hey. Set time aside for speaking with people who I don't get to see everyday. Just do it. Just do it.

Monday, May 5, 2008

school spirit

It's spirit week at the school where I work and I'm proud to be one of the few staff members who indulged themselves with the possibilties of pajama day. I don't usually wear pajamas, generally passing out in whatever I was wearing that day, or alternatively, stripping down to my undies and crashing in those. Luckily my mom gives me pajamas every year for christmas, my birthday, or both, so I didn't have to show up to work in my boxers. I complimented my black and white checkered pj bottoms with a white snowman blankey safety pinned to a wife beater. I was going to grab a stuffed animal too, but at the last minute I decided against it, in favor of not having one hand occupied all day long.

I got lots of praise for my creative use of props and either a big laugh or a hanging jaw from most of the middle school students, which is pretty much what I was going for. I'm really loving my job so far and am really enjoying joking around/entertaining these kids. Every day I become more and more convinced that I'm going to want to work with middle schoolers when it comes time to choose a career. The elementary students are great too, but I enjoy my time with the middle schoolers much more.

There's still a part of me that wants to work in high school (or higher) athletics, and I'd definitely love to get paid to think about football (or baseball) all day, but I don't think it would send me home with a smile on my face the way working with younger kids does.

Spirit week photos coming up soon.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Easy Come, Easy Go

It recently came to my attention that the vast majority of tasks aren't flatly "easy". I never doubted that some people were "math people" and some people were "language people" and (god knows why) some people are even history people, but somehow I never extended that concept far enough to realize that a lot the things that come easily or naturally to me, are actually very difficult to a lot of the people around me. This realization has blown my mind.

Over the last few days some of my baseball buddies and I have been discussing performance problems that, according to my previous understanding of the world, could only possibly be the result of a lack of effort on the part of the transgressors. I felt that some of my teammates were under performing in an aspect of the game that was so basic, so simple and so easy (i.e. easy to me), that if they would simply try a little, then the problem would go away. I was willing to argue this point to the bitter end, confident that something had to be done about our teammates' lack of effort and commitment. Then one of my teammates said something that broke my brain a little. He said "but, what if they are trying?" He had only broken my brain a little though, so of course I responded, "but they're not!" So then he broke my brain a little bit more. He said, get this: "but what if they are?" That time it clicked. My eyes widened and I sat there stunned, silenced and kind of embarrassed. The possibility that this particular aspect of the game might be difficult to someone had literally never even occurred to me. I don't know how... I don't know why... but it never passed through my mind as even a hypothetical explanation for the problems we were having. I was more than just a little embarrassed.

I would consider myself a very logical person. I generally think things through pretty rationally and given a little bit of time and someone to bounce ideas off of, I can usually come up with a pretty decent solution to most problems. My best friend is among the best students in the nation at debate. He is also a very logical person, consistently able to reason things out and explain ideas in a very rational way. One of my favorite things to do is to sit down with him and just talk, discussing or debating whatever it is that's caught our attention at that moment. The last time he was in town we did this for several (roughly 8) straight hours much to the chagrin of our mutual friends who would've preferred to go to sleep before 5 in the morning. On the opposite end of the spectrum is a group of people that has always baffled and frustrated me: people who aren't as good at figuring things out and have a hard time explaining things in detail. For as long as I can remember, I've gotten so frustrated when debating with these people because I always felt that they weren't understanding what I was saying (or expressing what they wanted to say) simply because they weren't trying. Just like with baseball, the process came so naturally to me that I had it locked in my mind as something that was "easy" to do and that there was no explanation for someone not being able to do it. Looking back now, it's actually quite humorous how upset I would get in these types of situations.

As of just today, my eyes have been opened. I'm seeing the world, the people in it, and the things that they do in a whole new light. I'm coming to grasp with the fact that, just because I'm good at something, doesn't mean it's easy and, even more shockingly, just because I'm bad at something doesn't mean it's hard, but rather that we all have different skills and talents and that the key to success is working with others to make the most of all of our strengths. What's funny is that now that I write it down, it really doesn't seem like much of a revelation, but it blew my mind just the same. Just because it may seem simple and basic to you... well... I think you get it. :)

Monday, April 28, 2008

Playing to Win

Yesterday at baseball a teammate and I got into it over a difference in play style. He felt that I was playing too aggressively on defense, causing mistakes, unnecessarily surrendering bases and in turn surrendering extra runs. Due to the nature of arguments, I thought he was playing too conservatively, was scared to make the big plays and was therefore surrendering extra bases and in turn surrendering extra runs. After barking at each other for a minute or so I huffed off to prepare for my at-bat and thought angrily to myself, "you have to play to win- you can't just play to not lose." And that's when it hit me like a high and tight fastball.

It's a philosophy that I've used in my gaming/sporting life for several years but, until recently, haven't applied to my lifestyle in the real world. It's the idea that you can't just wait for opportunities to fall in your lap. You can't count on opponents to make mistakes or others to open doors for you. In the sports world they say that that isn't the way you win. In the real world, they say that that isn't the way you succeed. For years, I've been hoping and wanting and waiting for someone or something to make life easy for me. I've been waiting for the perfect job to fall in my lap, I've been hoping for a great school to show interest in me and I've been expecting my dream girl to walk over and ask me out. I've been ultra-apathetic, passive and backwards towards the important aspects of my life while every weekend going out and doing it the right way (the aggressive way) for things that are just for fun and don't really matter. Well... I've pretty much had enough of that.

The friend that I was arguing with yesterday was right about something. Being aggressive does cause mistakes. I did fire a ball about 15 feet over our first baseman's head on a pickoff play, we did concede some extra bases by throwing to home when the safe play was to throw to second and we did have a handful of our base runners thrown out going for extra bases, but you know what? These are the kinds of mistakes that you can learn from. These are the kinds of mistakes that show you what you can, can't or have to do differently next time. These are the kinds of mistakes that help you grow. These are the kind of mistakes that help a beginner or intermediate player become an excellent player. There's nothing to learn from a conservative mistake as, most of the time, a conservative mistake isn't even doing something "wrong". It's doing the safe thing. I don't think anyone ever got famous by doing the safe thing.

I can't live scared anymore. I can't live passively. I've realized that I can't succeed if my only hope is for success to happen to me. It doesn't work in baseball, football or chess and I can't imagine why it took me 24 years to realize that it doesn't work in life. For a quarter century I've been content living a life full of intermediate mistakes, a life of conservative, low-risk decisions. A life designed simply to not lose. Finally, I'm realizing that that's not going to cut it, that I need to get out there and make things happen. Finally, I'm living to win.