For much of my life, I have played softball. In this game, if you go to bat and get out, you have failed. In fact, they even have statistics telling you how much you have failed. If you fail seven times out of ten, you are actually doing pretty well.
Some of you may be screaming at me already to think on the positive side, but bear with me. I have a point to make.
As I grew up, I found that the attitude of not attaining what I wanted left me feeling the same way I did when I walked back to the bench after an out in softball. I had failed.
I often had talks with myself, telling me that I hadn’t failed; I had only gained a life experience. This was true, but I still felt pretty disappointed. The result was that I often didn’t take chances on opportunities for fear of being rejected or feeling like a failure.
One day, a new thought entered my mind. In life, you don’t usually work on percentages. There is no average taken on what you do. You just do it or you don’t. If you don’t, the worst that can happen is that you are exactly where you started. Rejection doesn’t mean you lose ground, it only means you haven’t gained any.
This isn’t true with everything in life, of course. I’m not about to roll the dice on my home. Some actions we take can cause a loss. However, when it comes to reaching for the things I want where I have nothing to lose, I just go for it, knowing that if it doesn’t happen, I haven’t lost any ground.
Michael Jordan once said that he missed 100% of the shots he never took. I have changed my attitude quite a bit. I tend to cast my net into the sea of life a bit more. I feel better because I do. I no longer regret the shots I never took.
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