"That was pretty good!" Can be better than perfect

Its me playing for Joliet Junior College, 1970

Are we ever satisfied with ourselves? There's something within us that really keeps trying to strive for more. 

A doctor learns a new medical treatment and seeks to perfect the procedure that helps save many patients. That Dr. may go ahead and share what he or she has learned with other doctors and multiply his success. There is a sense of the doctor should kickback and enjoy the roses of a job well done. 

It has to be similar for an athlete who wins a contest or even a championship. He or she should take a moment to enjoy the success and maybe later think about it and share it as the story grows over time. 

If you listen to any great baseball announcer they tell a story that ages gracefully. There isn't really a comparison between the game today and the game of yesteryear. No, the story teller is wiser than that. The old story has been retold and each time grows as the story itself takes on a life of its own. If you find yourself getting bored with the x’s and o’s where the analyst goes on and on. You will recognize the great broadcaster who masterfully weaves the story of the game from legend to history of the moment. Just in case that doesn't workout, the old story can be a great metaphor of life.

I can sit back and recall playing a five set tennis match at a beautiful park. I lost the first two sets and came back and won the last three. My opponent usually beats me. Two sets I won 9-7 and 7-5. We drank water out of the tennis can filled up at the park’s water fountain. My waist size was somewhere between 33-35 inches. Four sets I played without my shirt. The tennis shorts favored strong legs. That particular day was good to think about. The rackets were wood and the game was slower to favor a strong serve and volley style. If I could shorten the point, it was better for my game. 

Tad Davis racket had a sweet sound and had good
balance for the one handed player.

I worked on my game mainly because I wanted to be more competitive. I never won a personal championship in tennis but I was on two championship teams in college. I helped other players become better doubles players. Perfection is just about impossible when you have cerebral palsy. Every time you go to hit a ball, it can be a new experience. Perfection implies consistency, so by definition, difficult to achieve in this body. I came up with a workable goal. “That was pretty good!” It may or may not have been perfect but it was pretty good. If you watch me play back then, you'd probably notice I was in a constant conversation with myself. 

No, our Dr. will go back to the drawing room, our doctor discovered other problems and quite possibly with the same problem. Heart disease, cancer, and diabetes still remain and caused havoc. 

Our tennis player ages and goes into coaching. The game is no longer played with the sweet sound of wood but with the woosh of new technology. Everybody hits the ball 20 to 30 miles an hour faster. Serve and volley has just about become history. Yet there's a lot of things to work on to help younger players reach a goal of “that was pretty good.” Someday when the coach is gone and for the most part forgotten, that young player will remember playing when his waist was small and he drank water from his then obsolete water filter. He never heard the sweet sound of wood, but he reflects on the sound of woosh of his old racket that nobody plays with anyone more. 

Not satisfied with how you look, weight, health, relationships, money, spiritual life? There are a lot of good goals we can think about that are worthwhile to pursue. So try this attitude, “that was pretty good”. Keep walking