The Time We Get

When you are in your mid thirties and you think about changes in life you go back and forth about what to do and why.

There are moments when the music takes you one direction and then another.

Should you choose hesitate to take advantage of opportunity thinking maybe you’ll get another shot or have time to think about it you might learn otherwise.

You might get a better sense of the meaning of the the time we get when you miss grabbing that brass ring when your horse circles around.

Because it might take far longer for that horse to makes it way around again.

Some say the best thing you can is forget about the missed opportunities and find something else to occupy your thought and energy.

But what happens if one day you look up and see that horse has made far more progress and you just might get another chance to grab it?

Do you say screw it and figure if you were meant to grab it you would have done so already or do you think that maybe lightning can strike again.

Do you step into that batter’s box and look for the fastball you know is coming, waist high across the center of the plate?

Won’t be a curve, not this time, that guy on the mound is going to bring the heat.

Just Make Contact

The two best pieces of athletic advice I received were to just make contact and to not think, just act.

If you spent enough time practicing you really didn’t have to think because your mind and body would act as one.

When I was at the plate I knew if I shut off the whispering in my mind and just made contact I was going to pound the hell out of the ball.

Maybe not every time, but enough to be successful and to make that pitcher have to think about me.

On the basketball court rebounding was simple, see the ball, follow the ball and then get the ball. Ninety-eight percent was will and effort, I always had that.

Couldn’t teach height so sometimes I missed, but I could live with losing the ball to a guy who was six inches taller, especially since I knew he probably didn’t twink twice about me.

Shooting was different for me, probably because I didn’t spend as much time practicing and it was harder to quiet the voice inside.  I had to focus harder on quieting that voice, but when I do good things happen.

****

Sometimes I approach ‘real life’ the same way I approach sports because the same principles apply and yield the same success for me.

Most of the time it works well because I don’t let myself suffer from paralysis of analysis. I don’t let myself lose out because I spent too much time trying to evaluate what might or might not happen.

Some of it comes from life experience and knowing that I know what to do to get through the rough spots.

But it also comes from hard lessons learned, such as those gifted by learning the meaning of the time we get.