I like what you've said about the foul line - very good example. I'd like to offer up my two-cents and include "control" into the picture.
For example, I'm on the foul line, I control everything up until the moment the ball leaves my fingertips. As soon as it's in the air, there's nothing I can do - the ball either goes into the basket or it doesn't. Whether it goes into the basket could depend on my preparation, but sometimes even the best preparation results in failure. Preparation is within my control; the outcome is not.
You also make a good point about people who try to get you off of your game when you're on that foul line. They want to make you angry and frustrated - to prevent you from succeeding. But that's when 'control' comes into the picture. Can I control the way someone else behaves? No. Can I control how I react to that person's behavior? Yes. Allowing someone else to 'make' us mad - to change our thoughts - is to give them power over us.
From what you written your first two pages, you know how anger can mess up a lot of situations (and people). It is a dangerous emotion that causes so much damage. There's a great philosopher of Stoicism, Seneca, who had this to say about anger a little over 2,000 years ago:
"The best course is to reject at once the first incitement to anger, to resist even its small beginnings, and to take pains to avoid falling into anger. For if it begins to lead us astray, the return to the safe path is difficult, since, if once we admit the emotion and by our own free will grant it any authority, reason becomes of no avail; after that it will do, not whatever you let it, but whatever it chooses."
Isn't it amazing how some things never change through the ages?
I've enjoyed what you've written. Thank you for sharing.
RSS
Replies (2)
For example, I'm on the foul line, I control everything up until the moment the ball leaves my fingertips. As soon as it's in the air, there's nothing I can do - the ball either goes into the basket or it doesn't. Whether it goes into the basket could depend on my preparation, but sometimes even the best preparation results in failure. Preparation is within my control; the outcome is not.
You also make a good point about people who try to get you off of your game when you're on that foul line. They want to make you angry and frustrated - to prevent you from succeeding. But that's when 'control' comes into the picture. Can I control the way someone else behaves? No. Can I control how I react to that person's behavior? Yes. Allowing someone else to 'make' us mad - to change our thoughts - is to give them power over us.
From what you written your first two pages, you know how anger can mess up a lot of situations (and people). It is a dangerous emotion that causes so much damage. There's a great philosopher of Stoicism, Seneca, who had this to say about anger a little over 2,000 years ago:
"The best course is to reject at once the first incitement to anger, to resist even its small beginnings, and to take pains to avoid falling into anger. For if it begins to lead us astray, the return to the safe path is difficult, since, if once we admit the emotion and by our own free will grant it any authority, reason becomes of no avail; after that it will do, not whatever you let it, but whatever it chooses."
Isn't it amazing how some things never change through the ages?
I've enjoyed what you've written. Thank you for sharing.