My sister is visiting from out of town today, and we spent much of the evening bowling and playing billiards. Now, my exposure to either of these could readily be classified as 'minimal,' but even relative to many people I've seen who play either game as infrequently as I, my performances are routinely abominable. While failing to put up anything resembling a decent contest, I found myself trying to commit to my turns the same mental energy and concentration I do to most things I choose to have in my life. I found myself dissecting the mechanics of both games and contemplating how much practice I could routinely get to ingrain the execution of these concepts into muscle memory, how far I could take my abilities.
Then, I walked away from the games, and those thoughts immediately evaporated. I have always been the sort where, once something catches my interest, it haunts me; in this case, petty as it was, I only cared about giving over any effort to the game as far as not losing in the moment, and even that was half-hearted at best. I also found myself making excuses in my head for my poor performance, though I had the good sense to keep them to myself until I'd quashed them.
Such motivation is fake, having no bearing on my actual happiness, and it's a part of my egotistical side that needs to die so that I can have the time and energy to focus on the things I actually care about. Instructive!
Still learning,
~L
No comments:
Post a Comment