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.
4 comments:
I know JL already suggested this, but I would also be interested in reading about some of the concrete goals you have. I’m going to write about some of mine soon. Maybe we can help keep each other accountable.
that's a good philosophy to live by.
Everyone told me you were a great writer, but dang! (Hope to see more of it.) Sounds like you finally found the drive you need. Hope you keep going with it. And thanks for sharing it so the rest of us can get our stuff together, too.
That's a good idea trizzle. As we already discussed, some of my career goals are a little fuzzy right now, but putting them down on "paper" might help clear up the static.
Thanks katrina, I'm just now starting to live by it... I'll let you all know how it works out.
Thanks for the encouragement goldenrail.
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