This chapter began with a question:
“If there were something I could do for my younger self during my student years, what would it be?”
My answer was this: I would help him resolve the doubts and frustrations he constantly felt while pursuing the sport he loved—baseball.
I enjoyed practice more than games. Although I was supposedly practicing for games, I could never truly enjoy the games themselves, and I felt a sense of contradiction because of that.
As I grew older, I came to understand that the source of this uneasiness lay in the reality that competition is a zero-sum game whose outcomes cannot be fully controlled. Realizing this lifted a weight from my mind.
I also recognized that, because I found joy in improving my baseball skills themselves, I felt uncomfortable with competitions for starting positions and with winning and losing—contests in which there is only one trophy to be won.
Had I understood this at the time, I would not have been carried away by every short-term result. Instead, I could have calmly accepted the randomness of wins and losses while continuing to pursue my own growth. I believe I would have come to love games just as much as I loved practice.
Naturally, my results would probably have been much better as well.
The educational value of competitive sports lies in their ability to inspire a desire for self-improvement. However, when we become obsessed with outcomes that are ultimately beyond our control, we tend to fall into reactive, short-sighted thinking and behavior, eventually leading to burnout.
If you understand that results are inherently uncertain, and if you devote yourself to the game you love while continually asking yourself, “What attitude is worthy of a winner?” and “What kind of play is worthy of a winner?”, you will be able to love baseball as a lifelong pursuit. Moreover, the lessons you learn from the game will enrich your life far beyond the baseball field.
PDF Link : 8. In Closing