Don't Be Part of the Masses

I got an interesting e-mail from Tom Hanson as a member of his gym and once I read it I just had to share some thoughts with you. You see part of the message was from a guy named Matt who was criticized for talking about going to the World Series and traveling while "everyone else" was going through this tough economic time. Matt was basically told that he shouldn't be talking about things like that while others are struggling.

I'm sure we can all see the guy's point. However, the guy who was criticized went into this whole long thing (which was all very good by the way) which pointed out that if he was to listen to this guy all he'd be doing is paying homage to the adage "Misery loves company."

My favorite part of what he said follows:

"If there is a mission for you in this lifetime - it cannot take place unless, first and foremost, you are true to yourself. If you are addicted to other peoples' approval MORE than fulfilling your goals - then you are NOT true to yourself and you cannot ever be truly happy."

This reminded me of when I was a little kid playing softball. I never wanted to stand out. I never wanted to be different. It was an uncomfortable place for me. When our coaches ran us through drills there were times when I'd have dog it because I didn't want to do the drill that much better than everyone else. Why? Because if I did, there'd be comments like, "Ho, superstar. What you think you're an all-star or something?' What were my teammates saying? Basically they were saying what the critic above was saying,"You shouldn't be showing off like that, you make the rest of us look and feel bad."

This use to happen in school too. When teachers asked a question, even if I knew the answer, I'd let someone else answer it or just left it unanswered. I didn't want to be the "know it all" nerdy one who answered all the questions in class so I kept my mouth shut.

Somewhere along the line I grew out of being uncomfortable being different and just started being myself and was very happy being me. It didn't matter much to me what other people thought. I played because I loved it and went all out because that's what made me happy. Plus that's what helped the team most, which, in turn, made my teammates happy too.

Anyway, back to the e-mail. There was one more thing that Matt said that I really, really liked because it summed up perfectly the way I felt when I was in high school and people would ask me if I wanted to drink or smoke or anything else I really shouldn't be doing. Here's was it said...

"Be ONE of US and all will be okay, the masses say. "

He immediately followed that up with. "No it won't."

I always felt like that's what they were really saying, "Be one of us and all will be okay." Okay, not for me, but for them.

And I was the one saying, "No it won't."

I always felt like they wanted me to join them so that they could feel better about themselves and what they were doing. It wasn't that I needed to join them so that I could get their approval. It always felt like they were asking for my approval not the other way around.

I never did accept any of those invitations to drink or smoke or do anything else illegal for that matter. I was a softball player, that was me. That's what I loved and that's what I wanted to do. None of that other stuff was going to help me be a great softball players so I never saw the point and I didn't need it to be accepted. My peers and teammates liked me the way I was, probably because I liked myself just fine.

One last thought that goes along with "Don't be part of the masses." If you're involved in softball and you want to be GREAT and get noticed for it being like everyone else is NOT going to take you there.

The guy that said the cool stuff I quoted above is Matt Furey and his article was brought to me by Hansons Gym.