Sliders in the Dirt: A Super Power Twenty Years Later

Want to know which hitters have success swinging at sliders in the dirt? No one does.. that’s who. It doesn’t matter how “good” you are. No one is having success swinging at those pitches in baseball. 

Want to know who swung at a town of them? I did. 

And, while it felt incredibly bad at the time, it might be my super power two decades later. I’m grateful to my former life as a baseball player, because the game completely inoculated me to the preciousness of perfection. I’ve never seen it, I’ve never been it, and, frankly, I’m not sure I believe it’s real. 

Striking out about a thousand times in my life on sliders in the dirt does wonders for me in adulthood. It’s weird to say but, to me, it makes sense. 

I’m so okay with failure. 

I’ve done so much of it and can’t see a future where I don’t do so much more of it that it doesn’t hold me back in the ways I see it holds most adults back. If you’ve avoided failure somehow in your life, check in with how you perceive it. 

If the fear of failure is preventing action in your life, you might benefit from some light exposure to free you up from that confinement. It’s done wonders for me.