Right, Or Left?

I remember when I was a kid I played little league basketball. I pretty much sucked at it, which is why I only played once. We played on these courts with short baskets, or low baskets. I think maybe they were eight feet, but I’m not sure. I’m much better at playing horse. One of my problems was that I was too easy to fake out. Some guy would come dribbling down the court, and fake left, and I could immediately commit, and put all my weight on my right foot as I shifted to where I thought he was going.

After his quick fake left (my right) he would then go right, opposite to where I had committed my body weight, easily going around me. I would be left standing there, looking foolish. No matter how good an offensive player, a defender never looks good getting faked out like that.

Much later I remember playing a game of flag football, as an adult. It wasn’t a big game, just a bunch of weekend warriors out to have a good time. I think we had a case of beer on the game or something. I was on defense, on the line. We were playing some kind of zone defense in front, and man to man in back, I think. I’m not sure how to describe it in football technical terms.

I think I was supposed to count two alligators or something, and then rush in to the QB and try to grab his flags. But on this particular play, something felt odd. For some reason, and to this day I have no idea why, I didn’t rush in. I was about to step in but something stopped me. The offense pulled this double reverse, and the guy who ended up with the ball came running right at me. Had I rushed in like I was supposed to, I would have gotten faked out, and he would have made quite a substantial gain. But when he did come running at me, I was still dazed, trying to figure out why I was still standing there. I grabbed his flag, and they ended up losing a yard or two.

After the play, a teammate come up and congratulated me.
“You read that pretty good!” He said, clapping me on the back.

I had no idea what he was talking about. Read what? Read how? Later that night, it finally hit me what he was talking about. It was if I was some kind of experienced lineman, and could instinctively read the intentions of the offense, and react accordingly. But football is another sport I only played once or twice as a kid. I had no idea what was going on. So why did I just stand there?

I remember reading some article on some website regarding commitment in relationships. It was written by a guy, and he was saying that men are actually more prone to commit than women. I think maybe his girlfriend just dumped him, so perhaps he was a bit biased. Obviously, if you are a guy, and you are after a girl, and you are into her much more than she is into you, it’s easy to see that you could think that guys commit more readily than girls.

Likewise, if you are a girl, and you are into a guy much more than he is into you, it could be easy to convince yourself that guys just can’t commit.

The harsh truth may be that guys, and girls are both perfectly capable of commitment, just not to you (whoever you are), at least right now.

But what is commitment? What is it really?

When you go to the grocery store, and you want to buy one apple, (say you only have a dollar) you have to choose on above all the rest. So when you choose one, you are at the same time forever saying no to all the rest. If you are really really hungry, then it wouldn’t really matter that much. You’d grab any old apple that wasn’t bruised up and didn’t appear to be half eaten by worms.

But if you were using the apple in a special recipe, later that night say, you’d be much more picky. You wouldn’t be overwhelmed by hunger and in a hurry to choose. You’d take your time, and find the best one out of all of them. You’d likely pick up a few, inspect them, and then put them back. (In case you’re a fan of Murphy’s Law, when you go to the store to buy one apple, it will always be the one on the bottom).

Whenever you commit to one thing, you are saying “no” to everything else. It’s kind of hard to say “no” to something unless you know what you are saying “no” to.

I remember once I was at traffic school. One of those places you have to go to in order to avoid an increase in insurance. The teacher was an ex cop, and was telling us stories about pulling people over. He said once he flashed his sirens, and one guy pulled over. When he walked up to the guy’s window, he asked the cop why he chose him. There were plenty of other people speeding, so why did he have to choose him.

“I just flashed my lights, and you were the only one that stopped.” Was the cop’s response. Kind of funny, but that is most people’s strategy for making decisions. Make a little bit of an effort, usually the minimum amount required, and they take whatever comes to them.

Guy walks into a bar (what is this, a joke?) and he falls in love with the first girl that smiles at him. Girl graduates from college, sends out twenty résumés, and takes the first job offer she gets.

What’s you’re strategy? Do you take the first offer that comes? Or do you wait, and take your time to decide? Turning down an offer, any offer that seems decent can be extremely difficult. I’ve taken jobs before, because they were the only one I thought I could get at the time. Then later when people asked me why I chose that job, it felt embarrassing to say, “It was the only choice I had.”

If we could look into the future, and see all the opportunities that come our way on a daily basis, maybe we won’t be so prone to commit to soon, and get faked out like I did on the basketball court. Maybe it’s best to just trust our guts, hang back and see what develops.

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