[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]
I played Little League baseball when I was around 7 and 8, a stereotypical right-fielder distractedly counting the clover while balls rolled past me.
My handicap in baseball was that nobody ever taught me the rules. Coaches just assumed we knew how to play the game.
One of my first times at bat, I didn’t understand how I could be called out on strikes when I hadn’t swung at the ball. Another time, I managed to make it to first base when the next batter hit the ball to second, so I turned around and headed back to first. I saw no reason two players couldn’t share one base. Why not? The coach had to drag me off the field to laughter and red-faced humiliation.
I grew up convinced I was uniquely terrible at baseball. My awfulness at the sport colored my entire self-image.
Then, as an adult, I found myself in a neighborhood ballpark with time to kill, so I watched a bit of a Little League game. In a flash, I realized that almost all 7- and 8-year-olds are terrible at baseball. They ran the bases backwards and toppled over as balls dribbled between their feet. They stunk!
It was an epiphany. I realized I hadn’t been a uniquely terrible baseball player at all. I’d been ordinary. Average. It’s not an exaggeration to say that watching those kids bumble about the diamond recalibrated how I thought of myself. A weight lifted.
“Ordinary” and “average” were a big relief.
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