Competition is critical; not for the ego-notched victories but for the learning opportunities. The insights made available through sport are not as clear in our day-to-day, but once we’ve felt it in competition, we get to take it back to the day-to-day.
Thank God for adult rec league softball, because I needed an insight.
I graduated from residency on June 30th. Four weeks after, on July 28th, I stood in the outfield of Elings Park, a multi-purpose Santa Barbara city common surrounded by a cacti checkered canyon. The weather was idyllic at 70. The guys on my team seemed great.
Funnily enough, the week prior I’d sold a softball bat on Facebook Marketplace—a relic from our med school softball team’s glory days—to a guy on the team I was now a part of. During the driveway exchange of the bat, my softball aspirations went from “hanging it up” to “we could use you next week”. What a blessing that was.
Because off the field, I found myself in a predictable and familiar purgatory. Residency was over—a feat that required everything in the tank—and here, I was awaiting the start of my outpatient psychiatrist gig in two weeks. The previous month of time off was wonderful, it’s always nice having a break, but it seemed an expiring, can’t-be-trusted-summer-break feeling. I was not long in the medicine world, this already determined, but didn’t yet know where or what I’d be doing. I had a vague idea that I’d work until I had enough capital to create something, build something, but I held nothing in my hands. I was no closer to building a career outside physicianhood. Legitimate excuses aside (we were planning a wedding), I was feeling the walls coming in, again.
Back on the field, I was given the “new guy” designations—last in the lineup and dropped in right field. As the home team, I got no action during the top of the first inning, watching the other team’s four-hole mash a homer and our infield record three other quick outs. At the plate, we scratched out two runs for a small lead, but my turn at the plate didn’t come. Thus, there I was, back in right field for the top of the second inning, when it began.
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Across my mind’s eye ran a montage of errors: me dropping the ball, me overthrowing the cutoff, and me letting the ball go through my legs. All mistakes. As these images continued, even after I successfully caught a pop fly, I watched myself attempt negotiation with these fears, repeating, “I got this. I’ll make the play. I got this.” I sensed a need to make every play, perfectly, to keep those fears happy… or else. Then I wandered, “Or else what?”
Then it clicked; if the only way to guarantee my okayness here, in a rec league softball game, is to be perfect, then I’m fucked. I hadn’t thrown a ball in four years. The outfield grass surface had mole-holes every four feet, turning any routine fly ball into a 50/50 ankle roll. Sure, I had played thousands of games of baseball in my life, but why was I expecting myself to perform like this? Sometimes I made plays, and it felt great. But, what was left the other times?
This analysis was occurring as the game continued, outs going to other players on my team. The game didn’t care at all about my little dialogue. I wasn’t that important.
Suddenly, I realized I wasn’t omnipotent. My shoulders relaxed. I bounced a bit. My vision cleared. I heard the crickets. I smelled my glove.
It became clear; my job, in that moment, was to be there and do my best. That was all. What more could I do? It was not possible to be perfect, all the time. That’s not competition; it’s fear of failure. Where’s the joy in that?
I am a very competitive person, always have been. I have cried during board games and broken more Xbox controllers than I’m comfortable discussing here. Losses were cataclysmic indictments of my self-worth. Yet, here in the outfield, for the first time, I sensed I’d be okay if I screwed up, if I was there and doing my best.
That was it.
The game continued, with me getting a few hits, then making a few outs, and catching a couple of pop flies. I did my job, and it was a fun night of ball.
As I started the new psychiatrist position a few weeks later, I couldn’t shake it. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t doing what I wanted. I felt I was going backward. I didn’t even know what I wanted; it just wasn’t this. Before, I would have needed a perfect plan, to replace and sure up the vulnerabilities leaving medicine would cause. To prevent every possible error, in playing the game not to lose.
In the weeks that followed, I repeated, be here and do your best. And ultimately, I left medicine, with no perfect plan in my pocket. Vulnerabilities were and are everywhere. I have a good chance at failing at whatever I do next.
But, here I am; playing this next game to learn, not to prevent failure. With that aim, I can live with any result.
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