We knew it was going to be a long ride home

There’s so much one can learn about life from a 13U baseball game!

My husband and I had the privilege of driving our son home from a baseball playoff game that his team lost the other night. A game where my son went 0-4. A game that played host to a lot of chirps from the opposing team’s dugout that ruffled a few feathers on our side of the field. A game filled with what my son called “terrible calls from a terrible ump!!!!!!” A game filled with 13-year-old boys who were all acting… 13-years-old. (And a few parents who were acting the same age.)

On this ride home, the backseat was doing most of the talking—shouting—and a lot of the shouting centered around these main themes: “I suck. I’m terrible. I should quit. I’m gonna quit. I suck soooo bad. I HATE THIS GAME. Whhyyyyyy does my swing suck?! That stupid f*$#@ umpire SUCKED! Those kids were jerks! They won off bunts. BUNTS!!!!” And on and on it went for about 15 minutes. (Eternity?)

Overwhelming anger and frustration basically ate my child up and spit out this emotional mess, and I get it. You get it. We as humans totally get it. We hate when our performances don’t give us the expected results we so badly crave. 

And the blame doesn’t rest on our shoulders—we don’t even share it. We distribute it! It belongs to the others who got in the way, who didn’t understand where we were coming from, who weren’t doing their job correctly, who didn’t even notice us or our work—how dare they!!!!

If only it was everyone else's fault when things don’t go according to our plans, hopes, and expectations.

This is one of the biggest lessons I’ve been teaching my son (and myself) over the last few years (since birth?). If you immediately turn to anger and frustration when things don’t go your way, you’re only strengthening that reaction while shortening the time it takes to trigger it. This means the next time something doesn’t go your way, you’ll only be better and faster at activating it. Do that enough times and it’s just how you deal with things. It’s how you react to life. Always looking outward for the culprit.

And that’s on him. Me. You. Not them.

“What you send out goes up to the stars and the stars send more right back to you.” Not the perfect way to describe it to him but he understands it. Maybe. I’m trying to teach him how, in those first initial moments when a knee-jerk reaction is right there, ready to fire, you don’t let ‘er rip! Instead, you pause. (Gah, no one wants to hear that!) It’s hard, momentum and habit are right there ready to roll. But even a slight pause can slow—maybe even stop—the momentum from building.

That slight pause is how a called strike three can be just that—a strike. A pop-up can be just that—a pop-up. A ground out can be just that. A line drive right to the third baseman can be just that. They can all be singular events.

But when there is no pause in thought, only reaction, the reactions intensify with each interaction at the plate. They build off one another until whatever has built up inside of you reaches its peak and you can’t hold it in any longer, someone has to pay. And like fire from a dragon’s mouth, you spew! Blame gets placed on them, your shitty swing, the bad calls, and rather swiftly, you feel like these things—when linked together—build a case against your performance and define you as a player, leaving you at the mercy of these perceived events. 

But if you create space between each one, and see them as individual events and not a lump sum, you can’t be overwhelmed by them. They won’t define you. They become opportunities to challenge, change, refocus, and try again. And again. And again. 

After going through all the emotions while sitting in the backseat, my son asked us what he could do to improve his performance, if we noticed anything wrong with his swing, and if I could teach him how to build muscle by working out. He worked through it, (a mini hero’s journey?) and hopefully next time this means he’ll feel less justified in looking outward for his mark to place blame. (I doubt it. These things tend to take a very long time to learn!)

Each moment is a new beginning. Each at-bat is another chance. If we don’t allow the past—distant and recent—to define the present moment, or who we are, we can squash almost every ounce of frustration we perceive. Poof, it won’t exist. But we’re human, we get upset, we pass blame, or take it all on in a split-second without realizing there’s another way. There’s so much more power in us to stop, pause, and get into the present moment—it’s just not instinctual yet.